Requirements engineering in software as a service business

Abstract

Etteplan’s technical documentation solutions include a variety of managed services and related software solutions. Etteplan’s capability to offer reliable software systems as services with high-grade usability requires continuous development. The goal of this thesis was to find improvements for requirements engineering processes for Etteplan’s SaaS systems development and deployment projects. Etteplan’s environment was studied and a process model was formed and analysed. To further explain the process model, literature was researched and reference model for requirements engineering and management, including best practices was formed. Based on the models, an interview study was planned for fine-tuning the formed process model. The fine-tuned model was compared to the reference model and best practices and the overall status of Etteplan’s process was determined to be good. However, feasible improvement targets were found. The availability of the requirements could be improved by enforcing the use of supporting systems and established methods. The traceability and capability to validate and manage requirements could be improved by documenting the sources. Further study is needed for determining a suitable level of detail for documenting the requirements and for finding new systematic methods for achieving the determined level. Introducing dedicated systems and tools could also benefit the process.