Context: Requirements engineering (RE) and Verification and validation (V&V) areas are treated to be integrated and assure successful development of the software project. Therefore, activation of both competences in the early stages of the project will support products in meeting the customer expectation regarding the quality and functionality. However, this quality can be achieved by aligning RE and V&V. There are different practices such as requirements, verification, validation, control, tool etc. that are followed by organizations for alignment and to address different challenges faced during the alignment between RE and V&V. However, there is a requisite for studies to understand the alignment practices, challenges and factors, which can enable successful alignment between RE and V&V.

Objectives: In this study, an exploratory investigation is carried out to know the impact of factors i.e. RE process and organizational factors during the alignment between RE and V&V. The main objectives of this study are:

1. To find the list of RE practices that facilitate alignment between RE and V&V.
2. To categorize RE practices with respect to their requirement phases.
3. To find the list of RE process and organizational factors that influence alignment between RE and V&V besides their impact.
4. To identify the challenges that are faced during the alignment between RE and V&V.
5. To obtain list of challenges that are addressed by RE practices during the alignment between RE and V&V.

Methods: In this study Systematic Literature Review (SLR) is conducted using snowballing procedure to identify the relevant information about RE practices, challenges, RE process factors and organizational factors. The studies were captured from Engineering Village database. Rigor and relevance analysis is performed to assess the quality of the studies obtained through SLR. Further, a questionnaire intended for industrial survey was prepared from the gathered literature and distributed to practitioners from the software industry in order to collect empirical information about this study. Thereafter, data obtained from industrial survey was analyzed using statistical analysis and chi-square significance test.

Results: 20 studies were identified through SLR, which are relevant to this study. After analyzing the obtained studies, the list of RE process factors, organizational factors, challenges and RE practices during alignment between RE and V&V are gathered. Thereupon, an industrial survey is conducted from the obtained literature, which has obtained 48 responses. Alignment between RE and V&V possess an impact of RE process factors and organizational factors and this is also mentioned by the respondents of the survey. Moreover, this study finds an additional RE process factors and organizational factors during the alignment between RE and V&V, besides their impact. Another contribution is, addressing the unaddressed challenges by RE practices obtained through the literature. Additionally, validation of categorized RE practices with respect to their requirement phases is carried out.

Conclusions: To conclude, the obtained results from this study will benefit practitioners for capturing more insight towards the alignment between RE and V&V. This study identified the impact of RE process factors and organizational factors during the alignment between RE and V&V along with the importance of challenges faced during the alignment between RE and V&V. This study also addressed the unaddressed challenges by RE practices obtained through literature. Respondents of the survey believe that many RE process and organizational factors have negative impact on the alignment between RE and V&V based on the size of an organization. In addition to this, validation of results for applying RE practices at different requirement phases is toted through survey. Practitioners can identify the benefits from this research and researchers can extend this study to remaining alignment practices.