Contemporary Challenges in Requirements Discovery and Validation: Two Case Studies in Complex Environments - Intentional Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering - page 60

relationship inhibits effective expectation management and conflict resolution,
because the business-side stakeholders adopt a skeptical stance with respect to the
requests of the technical project team. Focusing on the category of complexity chal-
lenges, the same systemic pattern of interaction emerges. For example, the difficulty
of defining interactions between socio-technical elements is impacted by, and in
turn impacts, the diversity of inputs that must be considered, the inability to effec-
tively prioritize requirements, and the impediments to assessing outcomes of the
requirements process.
While the within-class relationships between various RE challenges may be
largely intuitive, impacts across categorical boundaries were equally prevalent.
For example, the cognitive challenges contributed to, and were affected by, the
socially-based challenges. Specifically, the inability of users to effectively artic-
ulate their needs leads to multiple conflicts between the requirements of distinct
groups remaining unidentified, increasing the difficulty of conflict resolution when
such discrepancies finally surface. In the opposite direction, the social dynamics
between stakeholders affect the cognitive impediments of individuals. For exam-
ple, on the IPSI project, the expectation of an adversarial relationship between
business and IT stakeholders undermined reflectiveness/motivation of the anchor
partners, because they failed to perceive the value of reflection on their own
processes.
The relationship between socially- and complexity-based challenges is similar.
At one level, we can see that the social issues are embedded within the complexity
of the projects. This is illustrated by the fact that the diverse social project structures
(e.g., multiple schools, distinct agencies) are one of the key sources of complex-
ity in the form of a diversity of requirements inputs . In addition, the difficulties
experienced in managing expectations and resolving conflicts significantly under-
mined the ability of personnel to establish requirements priorities ( prioritization ).
Likewise, the diversity of inputs significantly impacted the capacity of designers
for conflict resolution , because the potential for discrepant requirements grew with
the increases in sources from which they were drawn. This dynamic affected the
nature of the business-IT relationship. Similarly, the difficulty that business person-
nel and developers alike had in defining interactions influenced developers' ability
to manage expectations and resolve conflicts .
Overall, the picture that emerges is one of broad systemic interactions. Each of
the types of impediments affected, and were in turn affected by, each of the other
types. One insight that we can draw from this is that it is important to consider these
challenges from a systems based perspective. Focusing on any one challenge in iso-
lation provides some solutions and improvements, but it robs us of a comprehensive
view of systemic difficulties facing RE.
This point is particularly relevant in that not all challenges have received ade-
quate attention. Much of the extant research has focused on challenges within the
cognitive and social categories. Cognitive issues of articulation have been widely
acknowledged since the earliest RE research (e.g., [ 7, 10, 16] ). Similarly, nearly all
of the challenges discussed at the social level have some precedents in the literature.