Software Requirement Engineering For Small and Medium Enterprise: A Case Study

Abstract: Context: Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are large part of economy. Challenges faced by them are unique and different from large scale organizations. One big problem faced by SME is management of Requirement Engineering (RE) activities. Requirement Engineering is one of the most important and critical phases in any software development project. Managed, precise, accurate RE activities and optimal process can play vital role in successful completion of any software development project. Objective: This thesis will identify State-of-art RE techniques for SME, which they can use to perform Requirement Engineering activities in better and optimal way. This task has been achieved by providing of a methodology and guidelines. These guidelines are based on Qualitative research and exploratory case study at a company named Fortex. This work will help requirement and software engineers in managing requirements and performing RE activities in a better and more optimized way. Method: Surveys and semi-structured interviews were used in order to collect Qualitative Data. Intensive study of relevant literature was carried out to deduce information about current state-of-art and other related work. A model was designed to perform RE activities on basis of that data. Later, a case study was performed at Fortex to benchmark the results. Results were analyzed to present guidelines and a model, for RE activities in SME. Results: A new method Communication Center Prototyping for RE (CCPRE) is presented for improving communication, user involvement and requirement during of RE activities. Guidelines are also provided after case study, which will help during the selection of suitable RE techniques for projects in SME. Conclusion: SME show unique behavior due to their small size, cohesive nature and open communication. This communication, added with prototyping, interviews and workshops can result in better management of RE activities for SME. CCPRE model presented here, proved to be successful during case study, by overcoming tradition challenges in RE phase.