How do practitioners manage quality requirements in rapid software development : a survey

Abstract

Software quality is an essential competitive factor for the success of software companies today. Increasing software quality levels of software products and services requires an adequate integration of quality requirements (QRs) in the software life-cycle, which is still scarcely supported in current rapid software development (RSD) approaches. RSD refers to the organizational capability to develop, release, and learn from software in rapid cycles. Q-Rapids (Quality-aware Rapid Software Development) research project aims to support decision-makers for QRs management in RSD. The goal of this survey is to explore how software development organizations using RSD manage QRs. The survey focuses on: (a) how data is gathered for assessing decisions related to product evolution, (b) how QRs are managed, and (c) the considered QRs in their products. We received 30 responses, from them we can conclude that most of the companies gather data both automatically and manually; QRs are managed together with functional requirements, sometimes or very often functionality gets priority over quality; and, the most reported QRs are reliability, performance, and security.