The three dimensions of requirements engineering

Abstract

Requirements engineering (RE) is perceived as an area of growing importance. Due to the increasing effort spent for research in this area many contributions to solve different problems within RE exist. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main goals to be reached during the requirements engineering process in order to develop a framework for RE. This framework consists of the three dimensions: • the specification dimension • the representation dimension • the agreement dimension Looking at the RE research using this framework, the different approaches can be classified and therefore their interrelationships become much clearer. Additionally the framework offers a first step towards a common understanding of RE.