Context: 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. Objective: In this article, we investigate to which extent standards and related artifacts such as templates or guidelines are known and used by RE practitioners. Method: To this end, we have conducted a questionnaire-based online survey. We could analyze the replies from 90 RE practitioners using a combination of closed and open-text questions. Results: Our results indicate that the knowledge and use of standards and related artifacts in RE is less widespread than one might expect from an engineering perspective. For example, about 47% of the respondents working as requirements engineers or business analysts do not know the core standard in RE, ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148. Participants in our study mostly use standards by personal decision rather than being imposed by their respective company, customer, or regulator. Beyond insufficient knowledge, we also found cultural and organizational factors impeding the widespread adoption of standards in RE. Conclusions: 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.
翻译:目标:在本条中,我们调查了标准和相关文物(例如模板或准则)在多大程度上为REE从业人员所了解和使用。方法:为此目的,我们进行了一次基于问卷的在线调查。我们可以结合封闭和开放文本的问题,分析90 RE从业人员的答复。结果:我们的结果表明,RE中标准和有关文物的知识及使用范围不如工程学方面预期的那么广泛。例如,作为需要工程师或商业分析师的47%的应答者不了解RE的核心标准,ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148。我们的研究参与者大多使用标准,而不是由他们各自的公司、客户或监管机构来决定。我们除了没有足够的知识外,还发现阻碍RE中广泛采用标准的文化和组织因素。结论:总体而言,我们的结果为在实际使用与RE有关的标准和相关实践方面提供了实证性的深入了解。