Non-functional Requirements and Key Propositions Elicitation for an HDSS: A Grounded Theory Approach

Abstract

Deciding humanitarian actions during relief distribution is a crucial and challenging task. Humanitarian decision-makers (HDM) make many critical decisions during disaster responses, but they suffer from incomplete, irrelevant, and sometimes excessive humanitarian operations-related disaster data in many situations. Hence, for constructive and meaningful support in decision-making, HDMs often appreciate computer-based information systems (IS) (i.e. humanitarian decision support systems) that require non-functional requirements (NFRs) for their development. To identify those necessary NFRs, we applied the grounded theory approach to analyze 61 literature- and field-based decision-making parameters reported in the primary author's previous research (Rahman and Majchrzak (2020)). Our analysis resulted in 13 essential NFRs and four key propositions to guide relief distribution decision-making in the initial stage and system development in the later stage. HDMs can benefit from such findings for practical decision-making, whereas the system development team can get help to plan and execute the system-building process accordingly.