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Based on a survey study of 138 software buyers in Turkey, this study examines conditional indirect effects of requirements uncertainty on supplier opportunism where buyer dependence, a proxy for relation-specific investments, undertakes a mediator role. The authors consider a two-level moderation effect of trust and contract in buyer–supplier relationships throughout the software project lifecycle.

A survey-based empirical study was conducted, and conditional process analyses were run using PROCESS macro in SPSS. The present study tests a two-stage moderated mediation model in which competence-based trust with a detailed contract setting moderates the mediational path from requirements uncertainty to buyer dependence.

The data obtained from the buyer side in the Turkish software industry showed that a relationship in which the buyer is structurally dependent begins at a high level of trust. On the other hand, the authors found that contractual rigidity fosters supplier opportunism ex-post in evolving process of the relationship.

This study contributes to project management literature by testing a two-level moderation effect of governance and the mediator role of buyer dependence in the relationship between requirements uncertainty and supplier opportunism. Moving differently from the previous studies, this study integrates contributions of both economic perspectives, such as resource dependence theory and transaction cost analysis, and relational perspectives into the information processing view.

The purpose of the paper is to find out the knowledge requirements and its effect on both onsite and offshore project work division for development, re-engineering and maintenance projects in Indian outsourcing software industry in different phases of software development.

This study employs an expert interview approach in Indian software industry to find out knowledge requirement for project execution and division of work between onsite and offshore locations. The requisite data were collected through expert interviews and direct observations.

The study found that the development projects require higher level of domain, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge in comparison to re-engineering and maintenance projects. So there is a need of higher onsite presence in development projects. The maintenance work is taken up at the offshore location in a phase-wise manner.

The implication of the study is in the development of a broad framework of knowledge requirements and work division in on-shore and offshore locations for Indian software outsourcing projects. As the study is based on expert opinion in the context of India, it cannot be generalized for outsourcing scenarios elsewhere.

The software project manager can use the findings to get more insight into the project and divide the software team between onsite and offshore location.

The study is novel, as there is little attempt at finding the knowledge requirement to execute various kinds of business software development in outsourcing environment in the context of India.

Explores the issue of software development process improvement. Total quality management (TQM) tools have been studied as possible means to improve the quality of the software that is becoming an important part of organizational processes. The TQM philosophy that has been so successfully applied in manufacturing holds that quality must be built into the production process and not inspected into the product. Given the complexity of modern software applications, the ability to move away from using testing and inspection as quality control methods is very attractive. Examines the current literature on software development process improvement. Particular attention is paid to how customer requirements are gathered and translated into system requirements. Finds that current methods for requirements definition do not provide a formal means to deploy the “voice of the customer” into system specifications. Further, finds after a review, that current software quality function deployment (QFD) methods suffer from a number of shortcomings. Proposes a four‐stage model for performing software‐oriented QFD to address these significant problems.

Requirements engineering (RE) and process improvement has been identified as one of the key factors for improving software quality. Despite this, little scholarly work has been done on developing ways to improve the RE process. The situation of RE and process improvement is even worse in small and medium enterprises that produce software. Consequently, the quality of software being produced by these companies has kept deteriorating. The purpose of this paper is to design a framework that will help small and medium software companies improve their RE processes in order to compete favorably with larger software companies, more especially in terms of software quality.

A qualitative research approach was adapted. Four software companies in Uganda were purposively selected to participate in the study. Data were collected using questionnaires. The requirements for designing the framework were gathered and refined from both primary and secondary data.

The key requirements for process improvement in small and medium software companies were identified as user involvement, use of evolutionary requirements engineering process improvement (REPI) strategy, change management, training and education, management support and commitment.

The designed framework was validated to ensure that it can be applied in RE and process improvement in small and medium software companies. Validation results show that the proposed framework is applicable and can be used to improve RE and process improvement in small and medium software companies.

The paper presents an improvement of the systematic approach to REPI by Kabaale and Nabukenya which is decomposed for easy understanding by non-technical readers and users.

The main purpose of this paper is to improve a web content management system (WCMS) product line for future implementations by identifying software commonalities in WCMS‐based web applications. WCMS plays a central role in modern web application development: most large public and internal web sites are based on a WCMS foundation. If we can improve the implementation process, the effectiveness and efficiency of web application development will increase significantly.

This research identifies reusable solutions from existing WCMS implementations using problem diagrams and structured goal modeling. From configurations were matched with atomic e‐business models by linking them to the strategic competencies through bottom‐up goal modeling. A designed method was constructed on how requirements can be elicited for WCMS implementations using goal modeling and problem frames.

The resulting method provides insight in relevant e‐business models and their relation to software product lines. Moreover, the approach is applied in a WCMS study which demonstrates its applicability.

The practical implications of this research is twofold: WCMS developers now have a method to improve their product line based on e‐business models; and requirements engineers implementing WCMS can use this model to apply reusable software and prioritize requirements. Both will potentially have a large impact on the effectiveness of implementations since most web applications are developed with WCMS.

The paper presents a novel approach for efficient and effective identification of software commonalities. This research is part of the web engineering method that focuses on development of web applications based on WCMSs.

In this article an overview of the state‐of‐the‐art of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) in software development or also called software QFD is given. The differences between classic QFD in manufacturing industries and software QFD are described. Following that certain software‐specific QFD models (Zultner, Shindo, Ohmori, Herzwurm and Schockert), which can be considered the most appreciated ones in theory as well as in practice, are introduced. Experiences in practice with these software QFD models are presented as well. Finally, through explaining the main principles of a special QFD variant for e‐commerce, called continuous QFD (CQFD), the article will show that QFD is suitable for planning electronic business applications as well.

The specification of business services (BS) is one of the key factors for success in service provision. Researchers and practitioners have identified a set of problems in BS specification, namely: communication problems between providers and buyers, inaccurate specifications and changes in requirements. These problems were identified in the software engineering (SE) field many years ago, resulting in the development of many techniques and tools to address them. Given the similarities between the two fields, the purpose of this paper is to identify the main lessons learned in SE and to propose how they can be adapted to the BS field.

The paper takes the form of a literature study and presents a conceptual solution.

To address communications problems and inaccuracies in BS specification, a formal requirements specification stage is required. Requirements should be set out in a well‐structured written, definition, document which can be used at a subsequent stage for design of the service (the definition of the solution). A requirements document for BS is proposed based on BS literature and SE methods. This document is based on the approaches used in the SE field for improving communication and reducing inaccuracies and covers the information needed in the BS field for specifying a business service. Second, a life cycle approach is proposed based on SE practice. It is shown that different lifecycle sequences can be used depending on the degree of fluidity in the communication between buyer and provider, the complexity of the BS and the stability of their requirements, with a repetitive process where specification and design are revisited iteratively and/or incrementally often being the most appropriate. This approach helps to stabilise requirements and to avoid inaccuracies being made in the specification.

This paper is literature based. Although still untested empirically in the BS field, the recommended approach has been intensively proved in the SE field.

Requirements specification is a necessary (monetary, time and resource) cost for successful BS provision. The BS industry must realise that requirements have to be set down in writing and agreed upon with customers before initiating the design of the service.

Contemporary offshore information system development (ISD) outsourcing is becoming even more complex. Outsourcing partner has begun “re-outsourcing” components of their projects to other outsourcing companies to minimize cost and gain efficiencies. This paper aims to explore intra-organizational information asymmetry of re-outsourced offshore ISD outsourcing projects.

An online survey was conducted to get an overall view of information asymmetry between principal and agents (as per the agency theory).

Statistical analysis showed that there are significant differences between the principal and agent on clarity of requirements, common domain knowledge and communication effectiveness constructs, implying an unbalanced relationship between the parties. Moreover, the authors' results showed that these three are significant measurement constructs of information asymmetry.

In this study the authors have only considered three main factors as common domain knowledge, clarity of requirements and communication effectiveness as three measurement constructs of information asymmetry. Therefore, researches are encouraged to test the proposed constructs further to increase its precision.

The authors' analysis indicates significant differences in all three measurement constructs, implying the difficulties to ensure that the agent is performing according to the requirements of the principal. Using the agency theory as theoretical view, this study sheds light on the best contract governing methods which minimize information asymmetry between the multiple partners within ISD outsourcing organizations.

Currently, to the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has undertaken research on intra-organizational information asymmetry in re-outsourced offshore ISD outsourcing projects.

The purpose of this paper is to expose and discuss the problems and suggests solutions for software development process in a large organization.

A case study approach was adopted in this paper. The case studies reengineering project in computer department at large organization. The structured analysis and design methodology used in this case included dynamic monitoring of qualitative and quantitative performance measures set for this purpose.

This paper addressed fundamental issues governing analysis and redesign of a software development process. Conceptual breakthroughs of new process were suggested. The success of implementing the project was based on infrastructure requirements for the new process and possible changes including positions and their required job skills. The paper suggests some software tool(s) that can capture the requirements and provide both backward and forward traceability.

The outcome of this work has implications for both practitioners and researchers. For researchers, the conventional, software development methodology should be amended to take into account the discussed issues in more details. For researchers, there is a need for substantial research into good practice in requirements and software development.

The original work of this project can be considered as detailed guidelines to help business process reengineering team members to successfully complete some critical activities associated with analysis and redesign of software‐development processes.

Many project failures can be attributed to changes in requirements as the project progresses. The purpose of this paper is to review several system dynamics models of the requirements process from the literature, especially the model of Andersson and Karlsson. This model addresses the deficiencies in the system dynamics model devised hitherto to create a model than can be used to predict requirements acquisition and staff resources for different levels of project complexity and size.

A new control‐theoretic model of requirements gathering is devised using the Software Test Model of Cangussu as a framework. Conventional control system techniques are then used to compute typical responses.

The results agree with the limited published data. This model can be used to predict an estimate of the possible number of requirements that could be devised for the project. It allows the incorporation of workforce, quality and complexity information to predict the time to complete the requirements process. This model is then used to predict how the requirements process responds to requirements creep and to changes in workforce used.

This model is theoretical and is proposed so that it can be simple tested. It makes a number of assumptions not yet recorded by industry that would have to be obtained.

If it is supported by experimental data then a better project development model can be created with the prospect of greater control of project development.

This work, although based on the work of Cangussu et al., is devised by the author.