Toward successful agile requirements change management process in global software development: a client-vendor analysis

Requirements change management (RCM) is an important and complicated phase in the agile for the software development process. The objective of this study was to identify and analyse the factors that can positively affect the agile RCM (ARCM) process in the context of global software development (GSD). To this end, a questionnaire survey was carried out with researcher and practitioner participants working in the field of GSD. From the 56 survey respondents, a total of 20 factors that can positively influence the ARCM activities in GSD were identified. The authors also performed a client-vendor-based analysis to investigate the significance of the considered factors for different organisation types. Additionally, they compared the data collected from researchers and practitioners. The comparison results (r(s)(20) = 0.076) revealed that there exists a positive correlation between the rankings in each data set. The investigated factors were mapped to ten project management book of knowledge areas, and the mapping results revealed that human resource management is the most significant knowledge area amongst the investigated factors. The findings of this study provide a robust framework to assist GSD firms in implementing ARCM activities.