Tony Gorschek; Kaarina Tejle MCS-2002:2, pp. 90. Inst. för programvaruteknik och datavetenskap/Dept. of Software Engineering and Computer Science, 2002.
The area of Requirements Engineering is often underestimated in value in the area of Software Engineering. According to certain sources the failure rate of IT investments is over 60%. In addition problems introduced through the Requirements Engineering of a project accounts for something like 50% of the total debugging costs. The main reason for this is a low level of maturity pertaining to the Requirements Engineering process.
This thesis introduces a model that can help organizations improve their Requirements Engineering process. A first step in process improvement is process evaluation. The REPM model has the purpose of measuring the maturity level of the Requirements Engineering process in projects, and to give a basis for what steps to take in order to improve on it. In addition to the model a method for using the model is introduced. The model and method are subsequently designed, implemented and validated.
The validation takes the form of interviews and case-studies in industry featuring four companies and four projects of varying size. The project evaluations were conducted on-site in both Sweden and in Ireland.
It is shown that the REPM model in combination with the method is a good way to evaluate the Requirement Engineering process of a project. It gives a picture of the current state of the Requirements Engineering process in a project and, more importantly, how the results of the evaluation can be used for process improvement.