People’s capabilities are a blind spot in RE research and practice

Abstract

[Context and motivation] Requirements engineering (RE) has a history of nearly 40 years and has developed several methods, techniques, and tools to support RE activities in various project situations. [Question/problem] This paper argues that RE research and practice is people agnostic and therefore has a blind spot: it ignores the capabilities of the people involved in RE. [Principal ideas/results] This paper presents several arguments from the related work that show that people’s capabilities may have a significant impact on their performance of RE related activities. [Contribution] Based on the presented arguments, this paper formulates the hypothesis that people’s capabilities have a higher impact on RE performance than the project situation and the methods applied. Based on this hypothesis, this paper presents possible further research activities.