A Study about the Knowledge and Use of Requirements Engineering Standards in Industry
2022 (English)In: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ISSN 0098-5589, E-ISSN 1939-3520, Vol. 48, no 9, p. 3310-3325Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The use of standards is considered a vital part of any engineering discipline. So one could expect that standards play an important role in Requirements Engineering (RE) as well. However, little is known about the actual knowledge and use of RE-related standards in industry. <i>Objective</i>. In this article, we investigate to which ex-tent standards and related artifacts such as templates or guidelines are known and used by RE practitioners. <i>Method</i>. To this end, we have conducted an online survey. We could analyze the replies from 90 RE practitioners using a combination of closed and open-text questions. <i>Results</i>. Our results indicate that the knowledge and use of standards and related artifacts in RE may be less widespread than one might expect from an engineering perspective. For example, about 45% of the respondents working as requirements engineers or business analysts do not know at least one of the two core standards in RE. Participants in our study mostly use standards rather by personal decision than imposed by their company, customer, or regulator. Beyond insufficient knowledge, we also found cultural and organizational factors impeding the widespread adoption of standards in RE. <i>Conclusions</i>. Overall, our results provide empirically informed insights into the actual use of standards and related artifacts in RE practice and indirectly about the value that the current standards create for RE practitioners. IEEE
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. , 2022. Vol. 48, no 9, p. 3310-3325
Keywords [en]
Guideline, Guidelines, IEC Standards, Industries, ISO Standards, Requirements engineering, Software engineering, Standard, Standards, Survey, Template, Computer software, Actual use, Business analysts, Engineering disciplines, Engineering perspective, Online surveys, Open text, Organizational factors, Personal decision
National Category
Software Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:bth-22005DOI: 10.1109/TSE.2021.3087792ISI: 000854591500006Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85111045248OAI: oai:DiVA.org:bth-22005DiVA, id: diva2:1584463
Note
open access
2021-08-122021-08-122022-09-30Bibliographically approved