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Requirements Engineering During Complex ISD: A Sensemaking Approach

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Information Systems Development

Abstract

This chapter describes the study that extends the previous research of social and organizational requirements engineering. The study suggests that requirement shaping during an ISD project can be described as a highly iterative sensemaking process of incongruence, filtering, negotiating and shifting. We studied two large e-commerce platform development projects by applying grounded theory and observed that attitudes and expectations about systems development among project participants filtered the understanding of IS requirements; negotiating between project participants resolved the issues caused by filtering and shifts in these attitudes and expectations facilitated changes in the understanding of requirements. This sensemaking process was highly iterative continuing the whole project lifetime and produced an IS product that exceeded the customer's needs and expectations. We approached the subject with a theory of sensemaking and claim to provide a new interpretation of how technology is collectively constructed in organizations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. South Carelia Polytechnic, Finland

    Päivi Ovaska

  2. Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland

    Larry Stapleton

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  1. Päivi Ovaska
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  2. Larry Stapleton
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Correspondence to Päivi Ovaska or Larry Stapleton .

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    Ovaska, P., Stapleton, L. (2009). Requirements Engineering During Complex ISD: A Sensemaking Approach. In: Wojtkowski, W., Wojtkowski, G., Lang, M., Conboy, K., Barry, C. (eds) Information Systems Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68772-8_16

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68772-8_16

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    • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

    • Print ISBN: 978-0-387-30403-8

    • Online ISBN: 978-0-387-68772-8

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