Factors that complicate the selection of software requirements: validating factors from literature in an empirical study

In market-driven software product development, new features may be added to the software, based on a collection of candidate requirements. Selecting requirements however is difficult. Despite all work done on this problem, known as the next release problem, what is missing, is a comprehensive overview of the factors that complicate selecting software requirements. This paper aims at getting such overview. The authors performed a systematic literature review, searching for occurrences in the literature where a causal relation was suggestedbetween certain conditions and the difficulty of selecting software requirements. Analyzing 544 papers led to 156 findings. Clustering them resulted in 33 complicating factors that were classified in eight groups. The complicating factors were validated in semi-structured interviews with twelve experts from three different industrial organizations. These interviews consisted of questions about participant’s experiences with the complicating factors, and of questions how these factors complicated selecting requirements. The results aid in getting a better understanding of the complexity of selecting requirements.