RVSim: A Simulation Approach to Predict the Impact of Requirements Volatility on Software Project Plans
Requirements volatility is a common project risk which has severe consequences on software projects. Though its impact on various aspects of software projects has been highlighted extensively, its influence on project plans is not well explored yet. This
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Laboratory for Internet Software Technologies, Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China {liudapeng, wq, xiaojunchao, lijuan, hzli}@itechs.iscas.ac.cn 2 Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, China
Abstract. Requirements volatility is a common project risk which has severe consequences on software projects. Though its impact on various aspects of software projects has been highlighted extensively, its influence on project plans is not well explored yet. This paper proposes a simulation approach RVSim (Requirements Volatility Simulation) which utilizes requirements traceability and dependency information to predict the impact of requirements volatility on software project plans. RVSim can help analyze the effects of requirements volatility in depth, and provide useful information for users to make better decisions. Moreover, RVSim supports customization for users’ own software processes and projects. We also provide a case study to illustrate the applicability and effectiveness of RVSim. Keywords: Requirements Volatility, Requirements Traceability, Requirements Dependency, Software Process Simulation, Risk Management.
1 Introduction Software development projects are highly complex and involve various kinds of risks from customers, business environments, resources and so on. Many researchers have reported that requirements volatility is one of the most frequent and severe risks in software projects [1-3]. Requirements volatility often results in cost and schedule overruns, unmet functions and, at times, cancelled projects. Requirements volatility has great impacts on diverse aspects of software projects. Existing studies have investigated the relationship between requirements volatility and development productivity [4-6], project cost [7, 8], defect density [9], project effort [7], customer satisfaction [6], project duration [7, 8, 10], change effort [11] and software releases [10]. However, the impact of requirements volatility on software project plans is not well explored yet. Project plans, which drive software projects, are highly important for software project management. Researching the impact of requirements volatility on project plans is especially necessary and valuable for improving the project management. In this paper, we propose a simulation approach named RVSim (Requirements Volatility Simulation) which utilizes requirements traceability and dependency information to predict the impact of requirements volatility on project plans during the Q. Wang, D. Pfahl, and D.M. Raffo (Eds.): ICSP 2008, LNCS 5007, pp. 307 – 319, 2008. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008
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software development lifecycle. RVSim is able to not only predict the impact of definite requirement changes, but also do impact analysis according to the trajectory of requirements volatility. RVSim can assist software project managers to understand the impact of requirements volatility deeply, make decisions accurately and improve their project plans continu
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