Value-based requirements engineering: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the state of the literature and practice about Value-Based Requirements Engineering. We focus on identifying what models for VBRE were presented and what challenges were discussed. We triangulate our results with industrial practitioners by conducting an industrial survey with 59 respondents. We identified 26 primary and 3 secondary studies and synthesized the findings using content analysis. VBRE was identified to be having a positive impact among survey practitioners. However, challenges like aligning product, project and organization opinions, selecting a most valuable requirement for a particular release, and including time-dependent requirements were identified to be impacting the organizations. The results from the study also suggest that, value dimensions like stakeholder value and customer value were not so frequently discussed in RE processes in both literature and among our industry respondents.