Case Study Research in Software Engineering: Guidelines and Examples

CHAPTER 13

A CASE STUDY OF THE EVALUATION OF REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT TOOLS

13.1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, we report the case study of the evaluation of requirements management tools (RMTs) and the subsequent selection, deployment, and postdeployment evaluation of a particular RMT at a software development company in the United Kingdom.

The RMT evaluation reported here was undertaken as part of a collaborative project between the University of Hertfordshire and 1Spatial Ltd., a software development company based reasonably close to the University. At the time of the evaluation, the company was a small- to medium-sized enterprise (SME), had been in business for almost 40 years, employed about 100 staff full time, and provided software products and services to clients internationally in the field of spatial data analysis. The company was ISO 9001:2000 compliant (previously ISO 9001:1994 compliant) and in 2004 the company implemented the Rational Unified Process® (RUP®) subsequently integrating RUP into its ISO procedures and documents. Until 2004, partly due to the lack of disciplined requirements management, the company was able to complete only two major software builds per year. The company had already decided to adopt an RMT to help improve software development, and the University and the company worked together to identify, evaluate, and decide on the appropriate RMT for the company to adopt, and then to deploy the tool and subsequently review its deployment. The overall ...