Managing requirements or be managed by requirements - results of an empirical study

In order to remain competitive, e.g. in the face of globalisation, many small and medium-sized product development manufacturers feel the need to change or refine their development processes. One of the key activities is to systematically translate the needs of customers into development requirements. Little is known about how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) deal with the complex topic requirements management and studies of large numbers of cases are still the exception. Many SMEs have problems in managing requirements. They often have the capabilities for requirements management but the processes are not well defined, e.g. insufficient monitoring of specifications and poorly organised customer contacts. How to work with frozen specifications and how to handle the wishes of the customers seem not to be fully understood. This paper presents selected results of an empirical study into product development of SMEs in the UK. The predominantly qualitative data was collected using a questionnaire which was designed as a self-help package.