Continuous Clarification and Emergent Requirements Flows in Open-Commercial Software Ecosystems

Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2018

Software engineering practice has shifted from the development of products in closed environments towards more open and collaborative efforts. Software development has become significantly interdependent with other systems (e.g. services, apps) and typically takes place within large ecosystems of networked communities of stakeholder organizations. Such software ecosystems promise increased innovation power and support for consumer oriented software services at scale and are characterized by a certain openness of their information flows. While such openness supports project and reputation management, it also brings requirements engineering-related challenges within the ecosystem, such as managing dynamic, emergent contributions from the ecosystem stakeholders, as well as collecting their input while protecting their IP. In this paper we report from a study of requirements communication and management practices within IBM(R)'s Collaborative Lifecycle Management(R) product development ecosystem. Our research used multiple methods for data collection, including interviews within several ecosystem actors, on-site participatory observation, and analysis of online project repositories. We chart and describe the flow of product requirements information through the ecosystem, how the open communication paradigm in software ecosystems provides opportunities for 'just-in-time' RE - and which relies on emergent contributions from the ecosystem stakeholders-, as well as some of the challenges faced when traditional requirements engineering approaches are applied within such an ecosystem. More importantly, we discuss two tradeoffs brought about by the openness in software ecosystems: i) allowing open, transparent communication while keeping intellectual property confidential within the ecosystem, and ii) having the ability to act globally on a long-term strategy while empowering product teams to act locally to answer end-users' context specific needs in a timely manner. A sufficient level of openness facilitates contributions of emergent stakeholders. The ability to include important emergent contributors early in requirements elicitation appears to be a crucial asset in software ecosystems.