Coping with Requirements Uncertainty -- A Case Study of an Enterprise-Wide Record Management System

Enterprise systems development projects (ESDPs) often face requirements uncertainty (RU). Thus, it is essential that their project managers can cope with it. In order to gain insights into managing different RU situations, we conducted a longitudinal interpretive case study. We investigated the requ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences pp. 4024 - 4033
Main Authors Michalik, Bjoern, Keutel, Marcus, Mellis, Werner
Format Conference Proceeding
LanguageEnglish
Published IEEE 01.01.2014
Subjects
Business
case study
Complexity theory
Conferences
Context
enterprise system development projects
Insurance
Interviews
requirements uncertainty
Uncertainty
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Summary:Enterprise systems development projects (ESDPs) often face requirements uncertainty (RU). Thus, it is essential that their project managers can cope with it. In order to gain insights into managing different RU situations, we conducted a longitudinal interpretive case study. We investigated the requirements analysis phase as well as subsequent phases of an ESDP in an international insurance company for 17 months. Thereby, we identified 42 RU situations and elaborately observed how practitioners coped with them. Based on these in-depth observations, we derive recommendations for applying requirements engineering techniques in RU situations. Thus, for researchers, we contribute to enterprise system and requirements engineering literature by making a first step towards a framework for coping with RU in ESDPs at a situational level. For practitioners, we elaborate on how and why certain techniques succeed or fail to reduce RU, thus helping them identify techniques most suited for certain situations.
ISSN:1530-1605
2572-6862
DOI:10.1109/HICSS.2014.498