Requirements engineering in new product development

The effectiveness of the interactions and communication patterns between Requirements Engineering (RE) and organizational roles involved in the New Product Development (NPD) process at MHTC, a Canadian telecommunication firm, is discussed. The methodology can be generalized and applied as a diagnostic tool to assess interaction effectiveness in other organizational settings. It enables managers and analysts to obtain a descriptive model of the behavioral characteristics of a complex socio-technical process, providing insights into the sources of task-related uncertainty and a base from which improvement strategies can be obtained. The method focuses on social network interaction among organizational roles and uses a generic style of questioning. The method also reflects role expectations and other organizational constraints such as division of work, power relationships, that effect task performance.