The impact of software development companies on software engineers' responses to incomplete requirements

Abstract

It is commonly accepted that software requirements quality affects software product quality, and high-quality software products depend on complete requirements. With incomplete requirements, depending on the requirement software engineers attempt to fi ll gaps differently; either by getting feedback from the user or by making assumptions. Assumptions may be explicit or implicit. Explicit assumptions are preferable to implicit assumptions because explicit assumptions can be validated. We conduct an empirical study to determine whether the number of explicit assumptions made by software engineers is related to the companies that the engineers work for. Using data from eight companies we investigate the responses of 251 software engineers to the same incomplete software requirement. The results of the study show a signifi cant relationship between a software development company and the number of explicit assumptions made by the engineers who work for that company