Requirements Risk Management for Continuous Development: Organisational Needs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v28.4441Keywords:
requirement risk management, agile, continuous development, development and operations, DevOps, systematic literature reviewAbstract
Information systems development has recently evolved from traditional to agile and continuous forms. Continuous development (CD) methods, such as development and operations (DevOps), integrate many well-regarded parts of agile development and add collaboration among an organisation’s development, operations and quality assessment departments. We argue that requirements risk management (RRM) poses additional challenges to projects where development work is carried out quickly and continuously. However, in the literature, most methods for prioritising requirements and managing risks are more suited to traditional development. This raises the need for new tools and methodologies to meet CD challenges. As these challenges constantly evolve, project management must be able to control CD, changes in the determination of requirements and the accompanying risks. Based on a systematic literature review, we define the key features of CD and develop a conceptual three-dimensional framework that can be used to understand the organisational needs of RRM for CD.
References
Almeida, F., Simões, J., & Lopes, S. (2022). Exploring the benefits of combining devops and agile. Future Internet, 14(2), 63.
Azizi, N., & Rowlands, B. (2018). The moderating effects of organisational culture on the relationship between knowledge sharing and IT risk management success. In Proceedings of the 26th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), 1–10.
Babb, J. S., Nørbjerg, J., & Yates, D. J. (2017). The empire strikes back: The end of agile as we know it? In H. Holone, S. Koch Stiberg, & J. Karlsen (Eds.), Selected papers of the IRIS; issue 8, 44–49. IRIS.
Baham, C., & Hirschheim, R. (2022). Issues, challenges, and a proposed theoretical core of agile software development research. Information Systems Journal, 32(1), 103–129.
Bragge, J., & Merisalo-Rantanen, H. (2009). Engineering e-collaboration processes to obtain innovative end-user feedback on advanced web-based information systems. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 10(3), 196–220.
Callanan, M., & Spillane, A. (2016). DevOps: Making it easy to do the right thing. IEEE Software, 33(3), 53–59.
Cao, L., Mohan, K., Xu, P., & Ramesh, B. (2009). A framework for adapting agile development methodologies. European Journal of Information Systems, 18(4), 332–343.
Cao, L., & Ramesh, B. (2008). Agile requirements engineering practices: An empirical study. IEEE Software, 25(1), 60–67.
Chen, L. (2015). Continuous delivery: Huge benefits, but challenges too. IEEE Software, 32(2), 50–54.
Chen, H.-M., Kazman, R., & Haziyev, S. (2016). Agile big data analytics development: An architecture-centric approach. In T. X. Bui & R. H. Sprague, Jr. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 5378–5387, IEEE.
Cois, C. A., Yankel, J., & Connell, A. (2014). Modern DevOps: Optimizing software development through effective system interactions. In Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC), 1–7, IEEE.
Davern, M., Shaft, T., & Te’eni, D. (2012). More enduring questions in cognitive IS research: A reply. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 13(12), 1012–1016.
Davis, G. B. (1982). Strategies for information requirements determination. IBM Systems Journal, 21(1), 4–30.
Davison, R. M. (2017). Editorial: The limitations of limitations. Information Systems Journal, 27(6), 695–697.
Dingsøyr, T., Falessi, D., & Power, K. (2019). Agile development at scale: The next frontier. IEEE Software, 36(2), 30–38.
Dremel, C., Wulf, J., Herterich, M. M., Waizmann, J. C., & Brenner, W. (2017). How AUDI AG established big data analytics in its digital transformation. MIS Quarterly Executive, 16(2), 81–100.
Ebert, C. (2018). 50 years of software engineering: Progress and perils. IEEE Software, 35(5), 94–101.
Elbanna, A., & Sarker, S. (2015). The risks of agile software development: Learning from adopters. IEEE Software, 33(5), 72–79. Gall, M., & Pigni, F. (2021). Taking DevOps mainstream: A critical review and conceptual framework. European Journal of Information Systems, 31(5), 548–567.
Gantman, S. (2011). Boundary objects and internal control in outsourced ISD projects: Results of a pilot study. In Proceedings of the 17th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) (pp. 1–9).
Gatrell, M. (2016). The value of a single solution for end-to-end ALM tool support. IEEE Software, 33(5), 103–105.
Gemino, A., Reich, B. H., & Sauer, C. (2007). A temporal model of information technology project performance. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(3), 9–44.
Ghanbari, H. (2016). Seeking technical debt in critical software development projects: An exploratory field study. In Proceedings of the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 5407–5416). IEEE.
Ghantous, G. B., & Gill, A. (2017). DevOps: Concepts, practices, tools, benefits and challenges. In Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) (pp. 1–12).
Ghobadi, S., & Mathiassen, L. (2016). Perceived barriers to effective knowledge sharing in agile software teams. Information Systems Journal, 26(2), 95–125.
Ghobadi, S., & Mathiassen, L. (2017). Risks to effective knowledge sharing in agile software teams: A model for assessing and mitigating risks. Information Systems Journal, 27(6), 699–731.
Heemstra, F. J., & Kusters, R. J. (1996). Dealing with risk: A practical approach. Journal of Information Technology, 11(4), 333–346.
Hemon-Hildgen, A., Rowe, F., & Monnier-Senicourt, L. (2020). Orchestrating automation and sharing in DevOps teams: A revelatory case of job satisfaction factors, risk and work conditions. European Journal of Information Systems, 29(5), 474–499.
Hevner, A. R., March, S. T., Park, J., & Ram, S. (2004). Design science in information systems research. MIS Quarterly, 28(1), 75–105.
Hickey, A. M., & Davis, A. M. (2004). A unified model of requirements elicitation. Journal of Management Information Systems, 20(4), 65–84.
Highsmith, J., & Cockburn, A. (2009). Agile software development: The business of innovation. Computer, 34(9), 120–127.
Horlach, B., Drews, P., Drechsler, A., Schirmer, I., & Böhmann, T. (2020). Reconceptualising business-IT alignment for enabling organisational agility. In Proceedings of the 28th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS), An Online AIS Conference, June 15–17, 2020.
Hütterman, M. (2012). DevOps for developers. Apress.
Hüttermann, M., & Rosenkranz, C. (2019). DevOps: Walking the shadowy bridge from development success to information systems success. In Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), 1–9.
Iyawa, G. E. (2020). Personal extreme programming: Exploring developers’ adoption. In Proceedings of the 26th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), 1–10.
Jayakody, V., & Wijayanayake, J. (2023). Critical success factors for DevOps adoption in information systems development. International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management, 11(3), 60–82.
Jha, A. V., Teri, R., Verma, S., Tarafder, S., Bhowmik, W., Kumar Mishra, S., Appasani, B., Srinivasulu, A., & Philibert, N. (2023). From theory to practice: Understanding DevOps culture and mindset. Cogent Engineering, 10(1), 1–31.
Jiang, J. J., Klein, G., & Chen, H. G. (2006). The effects of user partnering and user non-support on project performance. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 7(2), 68–90.
Karlsson, L., Thelin, T., Regnell, B., Berander, P., & Wohlin, C. (2007). Pair-wise comparisons versus planning game partitioning – experiments on requirements prioritization techniques. Empirical Software Engineering, 12(1), 3–33.
Kautz, K., Madsen, S., and Nørbjerg, J. (2007). Persistent problems and practices in information systems development. Information Systems Journal, 17(3), 217–239.
Keil, M., Tiwana, A., & Bush, A. (2002). Reconciling user and project manager perceptions of IT project risk: A Delphi study. Information Systems Journal, 12(2), 103–119.
Khan, M. S., Khan, A. W., Khan, F., Khan, M. A., & Whangbo, T. K. (2022). Critical challenges to adopt DevOps culture in software organizations: A systematic review. IEEE Access, 10, 14339–14349.
Kiper, J. R. (2016). Needs to know: Validating user needs for a proposed FBI Academy Knowledge Management System. In Proceedings of the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) (pp. 4334–4343). IEEE.
Kitchenham, B., Pretorius, R., Budgen, D., Brereton, O. P., Turner, M., Niazi, M., & Linkman, S. (2010). Systematic literature reviews in software engineering—A tertiary study. Information and Software Technology, 52(8), 792–805.
Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1999). A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems. MIS quarterly, 23(1), 67-93.
Krancher, O., Luther, P., & Jost, M. (2018). Key affordances of platform-as-a-service: Self-organization and continuous feedback. Journal of Management Information Systems, 35(3), 776–812. Krey, M., Kabbout, A., Osmani, L., & Saliji, A. (2022). DevOps adoption: Challenges & barriers. In Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), virtual, January 3–7, 2022, 7297–7309, University of Hawai’i at Manoa.
Lee, J. S., Keil, M., & Wong, K. F. E. (2021). When a growth mindset can backfire and cause escalation of commitment to a troubled information technology project. Information Systems Journal, 31(1), 7–32.
Li, E. Y., Jiang, J. J., & Klein, G. (2003). The impact of organizational coordination and climate on marketing executives’ satisfaction with information systems services. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 4(1), 99–117.
Lwakatare, L. E., Karvonen, T., Sauvola, T., Kuvaja, P., Olsson, H. H., Bosch, J., & Oivo, M. (2016). Towards DevOps in the embedded systems domain: Why is it so hard? In Proceedings of the 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 5437–5446. IEEE.
Lwakatare, L. E., Kilamo, T., Karvonen, T., Sauvola, T., Heikkilä, V., Itkonen, J., Kuvaja, P., Mikkonen, T., Oivo, M., & Lassenius, C. (2019). DevOps in practice: A multiple case study of five companies. Information and Software Technology, 114(1), 217–230.
Mangalaraj, G., Mahapatra, R., & Nerur, S. (2009). Acceptance of software process innovations—the case of extreme programming. European Journal of Information Systems, 18(4), 344–354.
Maruping, L. M., & Matook, S. (2020a). The evolution of software development orchestration: Current state and an agenda for future research. European Journal of Information Systems, 29(5), 443–457.
Maruping, L. M., & Matook, S. (2020b). The multiplex nature of the customer representative role in agile information systems development. MIS Quarterly, 44(3), 1411–1437.
Maruping, L. M., Venkatesh, V., & Agarwal, R. (2009). A control theory perspective on agile methodology use and changing user requirements. Information Systems Research, 20(3), 377–399.
Mathiassen, L., & Pries-Heje, J. (2006). Business agility and diffusion of information technology. European Journal of Information Systems, 15(2), 116–119.
Mathiassen, L., Saarinen, T., Tuunanen, T., & Rossi, M. (2007). A contingency model for requirements development. Journal of Association of Information Systems, 8(11), 569–597.
Matook, S., & Maruping, L. M. (2014). A competency model for customer representatives in agile software development projects. MIS Quarterly Executive, 13(2), 77–95.
Niederman, F., Brancheau, J. C., & Wetherbe, J. C. (1991). Information systems management issues for the 1990s. MIS Quarterly, 15(4), 475–500.
Olszewska, M., & Waldén, M. (2015). DevOps meets formal modelling in high-criticality complex systems. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Quality-Aware DevOps (QUDOS), 7–12. ACM Press.
Osmundsen, K., & Bygstad, B. (2022). Making sense of continuous development of digital infrastructures. Journal of Information Technology, 37(2), 144–164.
Ozkaya, I. (2019). Are DevOps and automation our next silver bullet? IEEE Software, 36(4), 3–5.
Patnayakuni, R., Ruppel, C. P., & Rai, A. (2006). Managing the complementarity of knowledge integration and process formalization for systems development performance. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 7(8), 545–567.
Peffers, K., Tuunanen, T., Rothenberger, M. A., & Chatterjee, S. (2007). A design science research methodology for information systems research. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(3), 45–77.
Qureshi, I., Fang, Y., Haggerty, N., Compeau, D. R., & Zhang, X. (2018). IT‐mediated social interactions and knowledge sharing: Role of competence‐based trust and background heterogeneity. Information Systems Journal, 28(5), 929–955.
Racheva, Z., Daneva, M., Herrmann, A., & Wieringa, R. J. (2010). A conceptual model and process for client-driven agile requirements prioritization. In P. Loucopoulos & J. L. Cavarero (Eds.), Proceedings of the Research Challenges in Information Science (RCIS), 2010 4th International Conference, 287–298, IEEE.
Ramesh, B., Cao, L., & Baskerville, R. (2010). Agile requirements engineering practices and challenges: An empirical study. Information Systems Journal, 20(5), 449–480.
Rowe, F. (2014). What literature review is not: Diversity, boundaries and recommendations. European Journal of Information Systems, 23(3), 241–255.
Royce, W. W. (1987). Managing the development of large software systems: Concepts and techniques. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference of Software Engineering (ICSE ‘87), 328–338, ACM Press.
Salmela, H., Baiyere, A., Tapanainen, T., & Galliers, R. D. (2022). Digital agility: Conceptualizing agility for the digital era. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 23(5), 1080–1101.
Schmidt, R., Lyytinen, K., Keil, M., & Cule, P. (2001). Identifying software project risks: An international Delphi study. Journal of Management Information Systems, 17(4), 5–36.
Sebastian, I. M., Ross, J. W., Beath, C., Mocker, M., Moloney, K. G., & Fonstad, N. O. (2017). How big old companies navigate digital transformation. MIS Quarterly Executive, 16(3), 197–213.
Sharp, J., & Babb, J. (2018). Is information systems late to the party? The current state of DevOps research in the association for information systems eLibrary. In Proceedings of the 24th Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS),1–8.
Shimada, T., Ang Soo-Keng, J., & Ee, D. (2019). Exploring the impact of IS function maturity and IS planning process on IS planning success: An ACE analysis. European Journal of Information Systems, 28(4), 457–472.
Siau, K., Long, Y., & Ling, M. (2010). Toward a unified model of information systems development success. Journal of Database Management, 21(1), 80–101.
Sletholt, M. T., Hannay, J. E., Pfahl, D., & Langtangen, H. P. (2012). What do we know about scientific software development’s agile practices? Computing in Science & Engineering, 14(2), 24–37.
Stake, R. E. (2013). Multiple case study analysis. Guilford press.
Stray, V., Moe, N. B., & Aasheim, A. (2019). Dependency management in large-scale agile: A case study of DevOps teams. In Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), 7007–7016.
Stuckenberg, S., & Heinzl, A. (2010). The impact of the software-as-a-service concept on the underlying software and service development processes. In Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS),1297–1308.
Taylor, H., Artman, E., & Woelfer, J. P. (2012). Information technology project risk management: Bridging the gap between research and practice. Journal of Information Technology, 27(1), 17–34.
Tiwana, A., & Keil, M. (2004). The one-minute risk assessment tool. Communications of the ACM, 47(11), 73–77.
Tuunanen, T., & Kuo, I. T. (2015). The effect of culture on requirements: A value-based view of prioritization. European Journal of Information Systems, 24(3), 295–313.
Tuunanen, T., Vartiainen, T., Kainulainen, S., & Ebrahim, M. (2023). Development of an Agile Requirements Risk Prioritization Method: A Design Science Research Study. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 52(1), 609-637.
Venkatesh, V., Brown, S. A., & Bala, H. (2013) Bridging the qualitative-quantitative divide: Guidelines for conducting mixed methods research in information systems. MIS Quarterly, 37(1), 21–54.
Venkatesh, V., Rai, A., & Maruping, L. M. (2018). Information systems projects and individual developer outcomes: Role of project managers and process control. Information Systems Research, 29(1), 127–148.
Virmani, M. (2015). Understanding DevOps & bridging the gap from continuous integration to continuous delivery. In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on the Innovative Computing Technology (INTECH 2015), 78–82, IEEE.
Wallace, L., Keil, M., & Rai, A. (2004). How software project risk affects project performance: An investigation of the dimensions of risk and an exploratory model. Decision Sciences, 35(2), 289–321.
Wang, S. Y., Chang, T. H., Hsu, J. S. C., & Lin, T. C. (2016). A study of the influences of knowledge boundary spanning on project performance in information system development projects. In Proceedings of the Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) (pp. 1–10).
Wiedemann, A., Wiesche, M., Gewald, H., & Krcmar, H. (2020). Understanding how DevOps aligns development and operations: A tripartite model of intra-IT alignment. European Journal of Information Systems, 29(5), 458–473.
Xiao, X., Lindberg, A., Hansen, S., & Lyytinen, K. (2018). ‘Computing’ requirements for open source software: A distributed cognitive approach. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 19(12), 1217–1252.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Sanna Kainulainen, Tuure Tuunanen, Tero Vartiainen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
AJIS publishes open-access articles distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Non-Commercial and Attribution License which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and AJIS are credited. All other rights including granting permissions beyond those in the above license remain the property of the author(s).
