Requirements Engineering: Best Practice

The ability to develop adequate systems in a cost-efficient way are essential. However, in practice this is rarely the case. Many systems development projects are perceived as more or less unsuccessful. Reasons for this include failing to deliver the requested systems and failing to keep the time and financial constraints. Requirements engineering has been identified as the activity having the greatest impact on systems development to achieve successful outcomes. The objective of the study, presented in this report, is to describe state-of-the-art of requirements engineering in the scientific literature and to relate this to the Swedish Armed Forces' needs. The study is based on a systematic literature review comprising 375 articles published during 2008-2011. Results of the study are presented in 16 categories, such as Methods and technologies, Stakeholders and their requirements, Prioritization, Requirements documentation and language, and Modeling The conclusion is that there is a lot to obtain for the Swedish Armed Forces in the area of requirements engineering, but that this must be done selectively, so that the selected approaches fit the Swedish Armed Forces' current approach.