Review of Requirements Management Issues in Software Development

A requirement is a capability to which a product or service should conform to. A meticulous consideration to requirements engineering acts as a backbone of software projects. Ambiguous and unrealistic requirements are major source of failure in the software-intensive systems. Requirements engineering processes are complex as most of the requirements engineering documentation is written in natural languages which are less formal and often distract the designers and developers. Requirements management is a continuous process throughout the project lifecycle and relates to documenting, analyzing, tracing and prioritizing requirements and then finally controlling changes. The main issues related to requirements management are usually social, political and cultural. Software requirement engineers who gather the requirements generally consider that such issues are beyond the scope of their profession as they deem them within the project management ambit. In this study, we highlight the management issues that arise in the requirements engineering process and explore the possibilities to tackle them amicably. The study is supplemented with a critical review of the existing methodologies for resolving and managing software requirements.