Living Requirements Space : An open access tool for enterprise resource planning systems requirements gathering

Purpose – This paper aims to discuss a new tool for requirements gathering in the Web 2.0 era. It seeks to investigate the features that this kind of tool should have in order to be as widely applicable and useful as possible. Further, it aims to explore the extent to which business requirements for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems can be collected and discussed collaboratively in a worldwide community of business process experts. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a combination of empirical research, hermeneutics and design research. Findings – The proposed Living Requirements Space (LRS) platform has the potential of becoming an international forum for collecting and discussing business requirements for ERP systems. Practical implications – The LRS platform will allow ERP developers, ERP systems implementers, and academics to better understand the evolution of business requirements for ERP systems. It will create a knowledge base of ERP business requirements, that is, a repository that guarantees open and unrestricted access to content. It will thus allow for more international ERP systems and far more comprehensive education on and understanding of business processes and ERP systems. Originality/value – LRS is an open access tool that allows for the gathering of ERP systems requirements in a vendor‐ and project‐independent approach that is unbiased towards any geographic region.