Today, when undertaking requirements elicitation, engineers attend to the needs and wants of the user groups considered relevant for the software system. However, answers to some relevant question (e.g., how to improve adoption of the intended system) cannot always be addressed through direct need and want elicitation. Using an example of energy demand-response systems, this paper demonstrates that use of grounded theory analysis can help address such questions. The theory emerging from such analysis produces a set of additional requirements which cannot be directly elicited from individuals/groups, and would otherwise be missed out. Thus, we demonstrate that the theory generated through grounded theory analysis can serve as an additional valuable source of software system requirements.

Dr Chitchyan is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Software Engineering at the University of Bristol, UK and an EPSRC fellow on Living with Environmental Change. She works on software and requirements engineering, sustainability, energy systems, and systems engineering.