Documentation of Quality Requirements in Agile Software Development

Context: Quality requirements (QRs) have a significant role in the success of software projects. In agile software development (ASD), where working software is valued over comprehensive documentation, QRs are often under-specified or not documented. Consequently, they may be handled improperly and result in degraded software quality and increased maintenance costs. Investigating the documentation of QRs in ASD, would provide evidence on existing practices, tools and aspects considered in ASD that other practitioners might utilize to improve documentation and management of QRs in ASD. Although there are some studies examining documentation in ASD, those that specifically investigate the documentation of QRs in depth are lacking.

Method: we conducted a multiple case study by interviewing 15 practitioners of four ASD cases, to provide empirical evidence on documentation of QRs in ASD. We also run workshops with two of the cases, to identify important aspects that ASD practitioners consider when documenting QRs in requirements management repositories.

Result and conclusions: ASD companies approach documentation of QRs to fit the needs of their context. They used tools, backlogs, iterative prototypes, and artifacts such as epic, and stories to document QRs, or utilized face-face communication without documenting QRs. We observed that documentation of QRs in ASD is affected by factors such as context (e.g. product domain, and size) and the experience of practitioners. Some tools used to document QRs also enhanced customer collaboration, enabling customers report and document QRs. Aspects such as levels of abstraction, the traceability of QRs, optimal details of information of QRs and verification and validation are deemed important when documenting QRs in ASD requirements management repositories.