Where do we stand in requirements engineering improvement today? First results from a mapping study
This study identifies gaps in REPI research for practitioners seeking to improve requirements engineering processes, though it is incremental as a mapping study.
The authors conducted a systematic mapping study to provide an overview of requirements engineering process improvement (REPI) research, finding that existing work focuses heavily on normative assessments and benchmarks rather than holistic, problem-driven improvements tailored to company goals.
Context: Requirements engineering process improvement (REPI) approaches have gained much attention in research and practice. Goal: So far, there is no comprehensive view on the research in REPI in terms of solutions and current state of reported evidence. We aims to provide an overview on the existing solutions, their underlying principles and their research type facets, i.e. their state of empirical evidence. Method: To this end, we conducted a systematic mapping study of the REPI publication space. Results: This paper reports on the first findings regarding research type facets of the contributions as well as selected methodological principles. We found a strong focus in the existing research on solution proposals for REPI approaches that concentrate on normative assessments and benchmarks of the RE activities rather than on holistic RE improvements according to individual goals of companies. Conclusions: We conclude, so far, that there is a need to broaden the work and to investigate more problem-driven REPI which also targets the improvement of the quality of the underlying RE artefacts, which currently seem out of scope.