Cognitive impact validation of requirement uncertainty in software project development

Abstract Currently, the most important factor which is receiving more attention is the requirements uncertainty in software projects development. Requirements uncertainty during the development of software project is identified as the most significant threat, and managing it is essential to achieve the successful completion of software projects. Requirements uncertainties have huge impact on budget, time and quality of the finished product. Several projects have either failed or challenged due to requirement uncertainty. Due to uncertainty in the requirements, it is very difficult to estimate the cost, schedule, efforts and its development approach in the early stages of software development process. This, in turn, will directly affect the development process. This may happen to be a strong reason for software project failure. Thus, uncertain requirements must be managed. The objective of this paper is to identify the relationships between uncertain requirements and other important parameters. Furthermore, the impact relationship between uncertain requirements and other parameters are established and validated. A conceptual research model is developed for relationship establishment as well as validated by an experimental study focused on a framework through online questionnaire survey. Responses are collected mostly from the Indian IT companies. The study results show a positive and significant relationship among requirements uncertainty and other important parameters. This research paper reveals the need of uncertainty analysis in the development process of software projects in order to recognize the role of uncertainty in software development process.