J. Basic. Appl. Sci. Res., 4(4)114-119, 2014 © 2014, TextRoad Publication ISSN 2090-4304 Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research www.textroad.com *Corresponding Author: Bilal Hassan, University of Management And Technology Lahore, Pakistan A Study on RE Process Models for Offshore Software Development Muhammad Usman Akram, Bilal Hassan, ShahidBhatti, Fahad Hassan, Jawad Bashir 1 COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Lahore, Pakistan 2 University of Management and Technology Lahore, Pakistan 3 COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Lahore, Pakistan 4 University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan 5 COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Lahore, Pakistan Received: January 6 2014 Accepted: March 11 2014 ABSTRACT :Increasing trends of cheap and quality software development have raised a great interest in offshore software development. Sub continental software houses are much cheaper than the European or American market. Due to cultural social and linguistic differences the requirement gathering has become difficult for offshore software developers. In this study the requirement gathering issues for offshore software houses are investigated and then the standard requirement engineering models are compared with each other according to different metrics and a comprehensive survey among the sub continental software engineers is carried out to suggest a proper requirement engineering model according to the nature of the project. KEYWORDS: Requirement Engineering, Offshore Software Development, Pakistani Companies, Project Management, Survey for requirement gathering I - INTRODUCTION Ever increasing demand of rapidly develop quality software in low-budget have developed a complete new set of software houses based in Sub-Continent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh in some context) which are totally dependent on foreign projects, cheap labor have encouraged European and USA based vendors to outsource their development to such low-cost software houses this scenario is called Offshore-outsourced software development (O- OSD). Due to some cultural bounds and lack of communication there arise a number of factors which can affect the software development has identified number of risk factors involved in O-OSD [1]. O-OSD has become a highly favored topic for companies aiming at cost savings while achieving final product delivery within estimated time schedules. Still, this type of development has several challenges due to its inherent nature. For instance, decreased degrees of communication, lack of knowledge about customers’ business domains, disputes on legal issues are big concerns [2, 3]. Low maturity of relationships increases the risk factors involved in development of offshore applications [4]. Italso further suggested that requirement gathering is the core phase due to its social nature to be affected. Due to the agile nature of the products especially when it comes to web application development the communication gap and lack of interaction with clients in offshore software houses the requirement gathering phase gets tricky. It has been studied that the work dispersion has a negative effect on the adopted structured software process models [5]. Software houses have been known to develop their own process models which can either be direct usages of the process models mentioned in texts or they can also tailor the process models according to their needs. The actual process models being used in any software development environment might be somewhat different from those which are widely recommended. There is a need to study the working atmosphere of the software house especially of those working offshore. In offshore software development the requirements are either shipped via e- mails, Skype calls or direct phone conversations. Due to the social differences there is a fear that the actual requirements are interpreted differently as explained by the stake holders. Due to the problems in communication and the dispersed nature of the working environment there is much need of studying the focus of the offshore software engineers on the requirement gathering phase of the software development. In this Survey a number of offshore software developers are engaged to discover the requirement engineering practices of offshore software houses. Results are analyzed, discussed and the comparison of different requirement engineering process models is discussed according to different criteria in order to setup guidelines for the requirement engineers to choose the proper model according to the nature of the project. 114