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Understanding the Relationships Between Requirements Uncertainty and Nature of Conflicts: A Study of Software Development Team Effectiveness

  • Research Article - Computer Engineering and Computer Science
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Abstract

Requirements uncertainty and conflict are the two pervasive phenomena that are currently receiving more attention in the development of information system (IS) projects. The existing literature based on requirements engineering indicates that, as a result of frequent interactions between users and IS practitioners, requirements uncertainty can negatively affect team performance. However, the nature of conflicts and requirements uncertainty have limited exploratory power with regard to software team effectiveness. The main objective of this work is to obtain additional insight into this phenomena by examining the relationships between requirements uncertainty (which comprises both requirements instability and variability) and conflict (i.e. task and relationship conflict). Furthermore, the impact of task and relationship conflict on team effectiveness has also been investigated separately. In order to address these relationships, a theoretical research model was developed and validated through an empirical study based on an online questionnaire survey. We gathered 71 complete responses, mostly from experts within the Indian software industry. The findings of this study indicate that there is a strong positive relationship between requirements instability and variability and relationship conflict; however, task conflict task conflict was not found to have a significant relationship with these dimensions. Additionally, we have observed a strong stronger negative effect of relationship conflict on team effectiveness than that of task conflict during the requirements uncertainty.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (ISM), Dhanbad, Dhanbad, India

    Mohammad Shameem, Bibhas Chandra & Chiranjeev Kumar

  2. College of Computer Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

    Arif Ali Khan

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  1. Mohammad Shameem
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  2. Bibhas Chandra
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  3. Chiranjeev Kumar
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Correspondence to Mohammad Shameem.

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Shameem, M., Chandra, B., Kumar, C. et al. Understanding the Relationships Between Requirements Uncertainty and Nature of Conflicts: A Study of Software Development Team Effectiveness. Arab J Sci Eng 43, 8223–8238 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-018-3375-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-018-3375-z

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