Handshaking with Implementation Proposals: Negotiating Requirements Understanding

Requirements engineering focuses on good specification practices but has yet to find working solutions for effective requirements communication. Inadequate communication and tacit assent to a demanding customer's requests make it hard to fully understand a project's requirements. A negotiation process, called handshaking with implementation proposals, has been used to communicate requirements effectivelyeven in situations where almost no written requirements exist and where distance separates the customer from developers. Handshaking is an efficient, flexible technique that uses architectural options to understand requirements, to make implementation decisions that create value, and to establish the foundation for a stable project. This article describes the communication challenges, solutions, and lessons learned in developing the handshaking process and applying it in industrial practice. © 2010 IEEE.