A study of the impact of requirements volatility on software project performance

Software development is considered to be a dynamic process where demands for changes seem to be inevitable. Modifications to software are prompted by all kinds of changes including changes to the requirements. This type of changes gives rise to an intrinsic volatility, which has several impacts on the software development lifecycle. This paper describes our findings of an extensive survey based empirical study of requirement volatility (RV) and its impact on software project performance. In particular, findings reveal that requirement volatility has a significant impact on schedule overrun and cost overrun in software projects. Our investigation also examined factors that contribute to the extent of requirement volatility and found that variables such as frequent communications between users and developers and usage of a definable methodology in requirements analysis and modeling have impact on the stability of requirements.