Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Naming the pain in requirements engineering

Contemporary problems, causes, and effects in practice

  • Published:
Empirical Software Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Requirements Engineering (RE) has received much attention in research and practice due to its importance to software project success. Its interdisciplinary nature, the dependency to the customer, and its inherent uncertainty still render the discipline difficult to investigate. This results in a lack of empirical data. These are necessary, however, to demonstrate which practically relevant RE problems exist and to what extent they matter. Motivated by this situation, we initiated the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering (NaPiRE) initiative which constitutes a globally distributed, bi-yearly replicated family of surveys on the status quo and problems in practical RE. In this article, we report on the qualitative analysis of data obtained from 228 companies working in 10 countries in various domains and we reveal which contemporary problems practitioners encounter. To this end, we analyse 21 problems derived from the literature with respect to their relevance and criticality in dependency to their context, and we complement this picture with a cause-effect analysis showing the causes and effects surrounding the most critical problems. Our results give us a better understanding of which problems exist and how they manifest themselves in practical environments. Thus, we provide a first step to ground contributions to RE on empirical observations which, until now, were dominated by conventional wisdom only.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Parts of the following text are based on our related work discussion in Méndez Fernández and Wagner (2014) as the related work has not changed significantly.

  2. We implemented the survey as a Web application using the Enterprise Feedback Suite.

References

  • Adolph S, Hall W, Kruchten P (2011) Using grounded theory to study the experience of software development. J Empir Softw Eng 16(4):487–513

  • Al-Rawas A, Easterbrook S (1996) Communication problems in requirements engineering: a field study. National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  • Beecham S, Hall T, Rainer A (2003) Software process improvement problems in twelve software companies: an empirical analysis. Empir Softw Eng 8(1):7–42

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Birks M, Mills J (2011) Grounded theory—a practical guide. Sage Publications, Inc

  • Brand A, Allen L, Altman M, Hlava M, Scott J (2015) Beyond authorship: attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit. Learn Publ 28:151–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buschermöhle R, Eekhoff H, Josko B (2006) Success—Erfolgs- und Misserfolgsfaktoren bei der Durchführung von Hard- und Softwareentwicklungsprojekten in Deutschland. ISBN-13 978-3-8142-2035-2, BIS-Verlag der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg

  • Card DN (2005) Defect analysis: basic techniques for management and learning. In: Advances in computers, vol 65, pp 259–295

  • Cheng BHC, Atlee JM (2007) Research directions in requirements engineering. In: Future of software engineering (FOSE’07). IEEE Computer Society, pp 285–303

  • Condori-Fernandez N, Daneva M, Sikkel K, Wieringa R, Dieste O, Pastor O (2009) A systematic mapping study on empirical evaluation of software requirements specifications techniques. In: Proceedings of the 2009 3rd international symposium on empirical software engineering and measurement. IEEE Computer Society, pp 502–505

  • Condori-Fernández N, Daneva M, Wieringa R (2012) Preliminary survey on empirical research practices in requirements engineering. Tech. Rep. TR-CTIT-12-10. University of Twente, Centre for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT)

  • Cox K, Niazi M, Verner J (2009) Empirical study of Sommerville and Sawyer’s requirements engineering practices. IET Softw 3(5):339–355

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Damian D, Chisan J (2006) An empirical study of the complex relationships between requirements engineering processes and other processes that lead to payoffs in productivity, quality, and risk management. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 32(7):433–453

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis A, Dieste O, Hickey A, Juristo N, Moreno AM (2006) Effectiveness of requirements elicitation techniques: empirical results derived from a systematic review. In: 14th IEEE international conference on requirements engineering. IEEE, pp 179–188

  • Eveleens J, Verhoef T (2010) The rise and fall of the chaos report figures. IEEE Softw 27(1):30–36

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glaser B, Strauss A (1967) The discovery of grounded theory: strategies for qualitative research. Aldine Transaction

  • Hsia P, Davis A, Kung D (1993) Status report: requirements engineering. IEEE Softw 10(6):75–79

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IEEE (1998) IEEE recommended practice for software requirements specifications—IEEE Std 830-1998, Technical Standard IEEE Std 830-1998, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc

  • Kalinowski M, Travassos GH, Card DN (2008) Towards a defect prevention based process improvement approach. In: Proceedings of the Euromicro conference on software engineering advanced applications

  • Kalinowski M, Mendes E, Travassos GH (2011) Automating and evaluating the use of probabilistic cause-effect diagrams to improve defect causal analysis. In: Proceedings of the international conference on product focused software process improvement

  • Kalinowski M, Card DN, Travassos GH (2012) Evidence-based guidelines to defect causal analysis. IEEE Softw 29(4):16–18

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalinowski M, Spinola R, Conte T, Prikladnicki R, Mendez Fernandez D, Wagner S (2015) Towards building knowledge on causes of critical requirements engineering problems. In: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on software engineering and knowledge engineering (SEKE)

  • Kalinowski M, Felderer M, Conte T, Spinola R, Prikladnicki R, Winkler D, Mendez Fernandez D, Wagner S (2016) Preventing incomplete/hidden requirements: reflections on survey data from Austria and Brazil. In: Proceedings in software quality days 2016

  • Kamata M, Tamai T (2007) How does requirements quality relate to project success or failure? In: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society, pp 69–78

  • Lemos J, Alves C, Duboc L, Rodrigues GN (2012) A systematic mapping study on creativity in requirements engineering. In: Proceedings of the 27th annual ACM symposium on applied computing. ACM, pp 1083–1088

  • Liu L, Li T, Peng F (2010) Why requirements engineering fails: a survey report from china. In: 2010 18th IEEE international requirements engineering conference (RE). IEEE, pp 317–322

  • Méndez Fernández D, Wagner S (2013a) Naming the pain in requirements engineering—NaPiRE Report 2013. Tech. Rep. TUM-I1326, Technische Universität München

  • Méndez Fernández D, Wagner S (2013b) Naming the pain in requirements engineering: design of a global family of surveys and first results from Germany. In: Proceedings of the 17th international conference on evaluation and assessment in software engineering (EASE 2013). ACM

  • Méndez Fernández D, Wagner S (2014) Naming the pain in requirements engineering: a design for a global family of surveys and first results from Germany. Inf Softw Technol 57:616–643 . doi:101016/jinfsof201405008

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Méndez Fernández D, Wagner S, Lochmann K, Baumann A, de Carne H (2012) Field study on requirements engineering: investigation of artefacts, project parameters, and execution strategies. Inf Softw Technol 54(2):162–178

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Méndez Fernández D, Mund J, Femmer H, Vetrò A (2014) In quest for requirements engineering oracles: dependent variables and measurements for (good) RE. In: Proceedings of the 18th international conference on evaluation and assessment in software engineering (EASE 2014). ACM

  • Mendez Fernandez D, Wagner S, Kalinowski M, Schekelmann A, Tuzcu A, Conte T, Spinola R, Prikladnicki R (2015) Naming the pain in requirements engineering: comparing practices in Brazil and Germany. IEEE Softw 32(5):16–23

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Napier N, Mathiassen L, Johnson R (2009) Combining perceptions and prescriptions in requirements engineering process assessment: an industrial case study. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 35(5):593–606

  • Nikula U, Sajaniemi J, Kälviäinen H (2000) A state-of-the-practice survey on requirements engineering in small-and medium-sized enterprises. Research Report 951-764-431-0, Telecom Business Research Center Lappeenranta

  • Nuseibeh B, Easterbrook S (2000) Requirements engineering: a roadmap. In: Proceedings of the conference on the future of software engineering. ACM, New York, pp 35–46

  • Pekar V, Felderer M, Breu R (2014) Improvement methods for software requirement specifications: a mapping study. In: 2014 9th international conference on the quality of information and communications technology (QUATIC). IEEE, pp 242–245

  • Pettersson F, Ivarsson M, Gorschek T, Öhman P (2008) A practitioner’s guide to light weight software process assessment and improvement planning. J Syst Softw 81(6):972–995

  • Solemon B, Sahibuddin S, Ghani AAA (2009) Requirements engineering problems and practices in software companies: an industrial survey. In: Advances in software engineering. Springer, pp 70–77

  • Sommerville I, Sawyer P (1997) Requirements engineering—a good practice guide, 1st edn. Wiley, New York. ISBN-13: 978-0471974444

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Staples M, Niazi M, Jeffery R, Abrahams A, Byatt P, Murphy R (2007) An exploratory study of why organizations do not adopt CMMI. J Syst Softw 80(6):883–895

  • Verner J, Cox K, Bleistein S, Cerpa N (2007) Requirements engineering and software project success: an industrial survey in australia and the us. Australas J Inf Syst 13(1):225–238

  • Wagner S, Mendez Fernandez D, Zimmermann T (2015) Analysing text in software projects. In: Bird C, Menzies T (eds) The art and science of analyzing software data. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We want to thank all members of ISERN who supported the design of this research initiative. Furthermore, we want to thank all our contacts from industry for their participation in the survey. Our gratitude also goes to the reviewers whose constructive feedback supported us improving our manuscript and in particular the further re-design of our instrument for the follow-up replications. Finally, Dietmar Pfahl was supported by the Estonian Research Council.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany

    D. Méndez Fernández

  2. University of Stuttgart, Keplerstra βe 7, 70174, Stuttgart, Germany

    S. Wagner

  3. Universidade Federal Fluminense, R. Miguel de Frias, 9 - Icaraí, Niterói - RJ, 24220-900, Brazil

    M. Kalinowski & P. Mafra

  4. University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    M. Felderer

  5. Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24, 10129, Torino, Italy

    A. Vetrò

  6. Universidade Federal do Amazonas, Avenida General Rodrigo Otávio Jordáo Ramos, 6200 - Coroado I, Manaus - AM, 69067-005, Brazil

    T. Conte

  7. Karlstads Universitet, Universitetsgatan 2, 651 88, Karlstad, Sweden

    M.-T. Christiansson

  8. Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

    D. Greer

  9. Aalto University, 02150, Espoo, Finland

    C. Lassenius

  10. University of Helsinki, Yliopistonkatu 4, 00100, Helsinki, Finland

    T. Männistö

  11. University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada

    M. Nayabi & G. Ruhe

  12. University of Oulu, Pentti Kaiteran katu 1, 90014, Oulu, Finland

    M. Oivo

  13. California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Blvd, Long Beach, CA, 90840, USA

    B. Penzenstadler

  14. University of Tartu, Ülikooli 18, 50090, Tartu, Estonia

    D. Pfahl

  15. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, Av. Ipiranga, 6681 - Partenon, Porto Alegre, - RS, 90619-900, Brazil

    R. Prikladnicki

  16. Hochschule Niederrhein, Reinarzstra βe 49, 47805, Krefeld, Germany

    A. Schekelmann

  17. Simula Research Laboratory, Martin Linges vei 25, 1364, Fornebu, Norway

    S. Sen

  18. Graduate Program in Systems and Computer, Salvador University - UNIFACS, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

    R. Spinola

  19. Fraunhofer Project Center for Software and Systems Engineering, Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

    R. Spinola

  20. zeb.rolfes.schierenbeck.associates GmbH, Theresienhöhe 13A, Munich, Germany

    A. Tuzcu

  21. Carlos III University of Madrid, Av. de la Universidad, 30, 28911, Leganés, Madrid, Spain

    J. L. de la Vara

  22. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    R. Wieringa

Authors
  1. D. Méndez Fernández
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. S. Wagner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. M. Kalinowski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. M. Felderer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. P. Mafra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. A. Vetrò
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. T. Conte
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. M.-T. Christiansson
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. D. Greer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. C. Lassenius
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. T. Männistö
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. M. Nayabi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. M. Oivo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. B. Penzenstadler
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. D. Pfahl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. R. Prikladnicki
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  17. G. Ruhe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  18. A. Schekelmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  19. S. Sen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  20. R. Spinola
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  21. A. Tuzcu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  22. J. L. de la Vara
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  23. R. Wieringa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to D. Méndez Fernández.

Additional information

Communicated by: Magne Jørgensen, Mika Mäntylä, Paul Ralph, and Hakan Erdogmus

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

(DOCX 113 KB)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Fernández, D.M., Wagner, S., Kalinowski, M. et al. Naming the pain in requirements engineering. Empir Software Eng 22, 2298–2338 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9451-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9451-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation