Sociotechnical debt in Software projects: measuring sociotechnical factors impacting requirements elicitation

Requirements elicitation is a fundamental stage in software development because it sets the conceptual basis for constructing software that seeks to satisfy the needs of clients and end users. However, during this stage, requirements elicitation teams face obstacles that can affect the accuracy and clear understanding of the needs and requirements specifications. Those obstacles are factors that indicate the presence of sociotechnical debt. This research aims to identify factors related to sociotechnical debt during requirements elicitation. Through literature analysis, we identified obstacles linked to sociotechnical debt in requirements elicitation. We developed EDReqAnalysis, a software prototype that automates the identification of sociotechnical obstacles in Jira (software to manage the development of software projects). The prototype detected three categories of obstacles: unaddressed user needs, requirement smells, and mismatched implementation.