Global Requirements Engineering on the Cloud PhD Research Proposal Sajid Ibrahim Hashmi Lero-the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre University of Limerick, Ireland Sajid.Hashmi@lero.ie Advisor: Dr. Ita Richardson; Lero, University of Limerick {Ita.Richardson@lero.ie} Abstract— Global software development is a business model that involves software development distributed beyond national boundaries. However, distributed nature of the processes makes it very challenging to communicate and collaborate. Requirements engineering is an intensive software development life cycle activity and involves frequent communication among the stakeholders. In global software development, tight project schedules and global distance give rise to incomplete requirements handovers from one site to another. Therefore, the need for an efficient mechanism becomes inevitable as information available to one project team can often contradict what is available to the other. On the other hand, Software as a Service (SaaS) is one of the deployment models of the cloud that can provide multiple users with a web space to collaborate on things of mutual interest. In this research, we propose a SaaS based mechanism to facilitate globally distributed software development teams working on the requirements engineering process. Our emphasis is on the situation that occurs after requirements are handed to another software development site. My Research Areas, Keywords — global software development (GSD); global requirements engineering (GRE); software as a service (SaaS) clouds I. INTRODUCTION GSD deals with teams dispersed across multiple geographical locations to carry out and accomplish software development tasks [2]. Organizations expect to benefit from enhanced business value through advantages such as round the clock software development, availability of skills and labour, and a reduction in overall project costs. This kind of development model emphasizes the need for communication among the development teams, which is good for software development but at the same time highlights challenges, as communication among GSD teams remains an issue [1]. A typical software project involves technical as well as non-technical development processes. Technical processes are the engineering processes within software project development phases such as requirements analysis, design, coding, and testing and their sub activities. Non-technical processes are those processes which are non-engineering, but are vital to the support of technical processes. Examples of non-technical process are communication and coordination. Due to distance and time zone issues, both types of processes would be equally important for GSD. II. PROBLEM STATEMENT In GSD, the situation gets worse when teams are located in different time zones. Moreover, distributed requirements engineering has been a problem area [4][8][9], and a key challenge when carrying out GSD projects is how to effectively communicate and collaborate when requirements are handed over from one software development team to the other one [3]. This requires an effective requirements engineering process especially when the teams are in different time zones. Our review of research literature a reveal that the teams involved in GSD projects often appoint one of their colleagues to work beyond the normal working hours to answer queries from the other team. The strategy may work well for certain situations but the use of natural language to discuss clarity on requirements is likely to be ambiguous [6]. III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND OBJECTIVE Our research question is how we can facilitate globally distributed requirements engineering process. In order to perform this research, we carried out a literature review and investigated the existing communication mechanisms and their limitations of coping with requirements engineering phase of GSD. Within this, we first examined alleviation of oral communication so that the teams in different time zones can be facilitated. Second, the proposed mechanism should facilitate a requirements validation and verification mechanism which accounts for missing and caters for conflicting situations. In addition, industrial interviews were conducted to collect data on experiences and problems specific to the topic under discussion. The emphasis was on investigation of GRE process related barriers. Based on the deficiencies with the existing mechanisms in GRE, we propose a methodology that we argue can deal with the issue under discussion. The objective of this research is threefold: first, it focuses on the need for communication during requirements handover while addressing deficiencies with the existing communication mechanisms being used for GSD. Second, it highlights situations where incomplete requirements could be handed over. Third, it proposes a SaaS cloud based mechanism to facilitate GRE process that aims to incorporate requirements validation and verification as well.