Requirements capture and analysis: determining the economic parameters
by Prodromos D. Chatzoglou, Linda A. Macaulay
International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology (IJCAT), Vol. 10, No. 5/6, 1997

Abstract: Planning the system development process depends on a method of estimating the resources (cost, effort, time scales) required for the completion of different stages of the development process. In the case of the Requirements Capture and Analysis (RCA) process, matters are even more complicated because it is an iterative process, and an estimation of the resources needed for the completion of each iteration is also necessary. This paper presents the results of a survey of 107 projects, in which an attempt is made to identify the relationship between the level of resources, the number of iterations and various project characteristics. The survey revealed that only 18% of the projects completed requirements in one iteration, whereas over 50% completed in three or more. On average, projects allocate up to 60% of their resources to the first iteration, up to 40% to the second and third, and less than 20% in the fourth. One important conclusion drawn from the analysis is that the size of the RCA process significantly affects the size of the whole development process. In fact, the higher the elapsed time (or the cost) of the RCA process, the lower the elapsed time (or the cost) of the whole development process. Finally, the more requirements are captured in the RCA process, the more requirements are accommodated in the final system.

Online publication date: Mon, 02-Jun-2014

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