Uni-REPM: validated and improved
Software products are usually developed for either a specific customer (bespoke) or a broader market (market-driven). Due to their characteristic, bespoke and market-driven development face different challenges, especially concerning requirements engineering. Many challenges are caused by an inadequate requirements engineering process, and hence there is a need for process improvement frameworks based on empirical research and industry needs. In a previous article we introduced Uni-REPM, a lightweight requirements engineering process assessment framework based on a review of empirically motivated practices in market-driven and bespoke requirements engineering literature. In this article, we validate this framework in academia as well as industry, in order to prepare Uni-REPM for widespread industry use. We conduct two validations; a static validation based on interviews with seven academic experts and a dynamic validation where Uni-REPM is applied in four industrial organisations. Uni-REPM is refined according to the feedback obtained in the validations. The study shows that Uni-REPM is a quick, simple, and cost-effective solution to assess the maturity level of the requirements engineering process of projects. Moreover, the assessment method using checklists is highly usable and applicable in various international development environments.
requirements engineering lightweight process assessment empirical validation