Requirements engineering in agile software startups - insights from multiple case studies

Abstract

This exploratory case study was conducted with five IT startups in order to investigate how requirement engineering-related activities are performed and what is the state of maturity with the practices & tools used. Another objective was to study that how the startups managed their practices during Corona Virus (COVID19) pandemic time. The results indicate that flexibility and access to the online tools were the main strengths of the startups to cope up with the pandemic situation while fluctuating market demands affected them marginally. The startups do vary in domain, team size, practices and selection of the tools, with matured startups having more structured (but flexible) processes compared to younger startups. The young startups have the opportunity to learn from the practices of the matured startups, to adopt the learning in their working context. The previous software development experience of the startups and its founders does affect the maturity of the practices and selection of the tools. The flexibility and agility as evident in the working context of the startups helped them to turn pandemic situation into their business opportunities.