Government development projects vary significantly from private sector initiatives in scope, stakeholder complexity, and regulatory requirements. There is a lack of empirical studies focusing on requirements engineering (RE) activities specifically for government projects. We addressed this gap by conducting a series of semi-structured interviews with 12 professional software practitioners working on government projects. These interviewees are employed by two types of companies, each serving different government departments. Our findings uncover differences in the requirements elicitation phase between government projects, particularly for data visualization aspects, and other software projects, such as stakeholders and policy requirements. Additionally, we explore the coverage of human and social aspects in requirements elicitation, finding that culture, team dynamics, and policy implications are critical considerations. Our findings also pinpoint the main challenges encountered during the requirements elicitation phase for government projects. Our findings highlight future research work that is important to bridge the gap in RE activities for government software projects.

翻译：政府开发项目在范围、利益相关者复杂性以及监管要求方面与私营部门项目存在显著差异。目前针对政府项目需求工程（RE）活动的实证研究较为匮乏。我们通过开展一系列半结构化访谈，与12名从事政府项目的专业软件从业者进行交流，以弥补这一研究空白。这些受访者来自两家类型不同、分别服务于不同政府部门的企业。我们的研究发现揭示了政府项目与其他软件项目（如利益相关者和政策要求）在需求获取阶段的差异，尤其在数据可视化方面。此外，我们探讨了需求获取中人类与社会方面的覆盖范围，发现文化、团队动态和政策影响是关键考量因素。我们的研究结果还指出了政府项目需求获取阶段面临的主要挑战。这些发现凸显了未来研究的重要性，以弥合政府软件项目在需求工程活动中的差距。