School of Mathematics and Statistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510006, China

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Abstract—Requirements change management is a vital part of software project management. The existing literature on requirements change focuses on its technical aspects and is less concerned with the combination of personnel and technology. Few studies have focused on predicting and preventing changes in requirements and finding changepredictors from the sociotechnical viewpoint. In this study, we examined prediction and prevention mechanisms of requirements volatility based on the analysis of change causes by stressing both the human and technical roles. Two case studies (a questionnaire and an interview) were done to validate the study. An online questionnaire was used to quantitatively analyze and explain the significance of human factors, including the emotional characteristics of developers. The result of the interview was applied to qualitatively illustrate the necessity and importance of effectively constructing and managing project teams to decrease the requirements change rate and enhance the software success rate. The prediction and prevention model established in this study was validated by a model called "3P + 2C", described in the interview. The paper concludes by suggesting to researchers four practical issues around the proposed model for further study.

Index Terms—change cause; emotional factor; interview; prediction; prevention; questionnaire; strategy.

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Cite: Yuqing Yan, Zhenhua Zhang, "A Prediction and Prevention Model of Requirements Change driven by the Improvement of Project Teams with Case Studies," Journal of Software vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 47-57, 2019.