Samenvatting

Uncertainty about requirements has a negative impact on project performance. In systems engineering, there is a process to assess requirements when they are transferred from client to contractor: the System Requirements Review (SRR). The aim of this process is for the contractor to decide if there is enough certainty about a requirement to accept it into the design and development phases. The decision, however, seems to be based solely on subjective criteria like experience, gut feeling or commercial opportunism. Not having objective criteria means that the outcome of the assessment process becomes unpredictable, which could leave the contractor at risk when uncertain requirements are accepted and cause major rework in the design or development phase. The research objective of this thesis is to find relevant objective criteria. The research consisted of a literature study to find an initial list of criteria, methods to measure uncertainty and factors that influence how much uncertainty is acceptable. The results were then assessed by an expert panel in a Delphi study in the context of systems engineering in the civil engineering sector to produce a validated outcome, an outcome that adds value to the requirements review process.