Maturing Requirements Engineering Process Maturity Models

The interest in Software Process Improvement (SPI) in the early 1990s stimulated tentative work on parallel models for Requirements Engineering (RE) process improvement in the late 1990s. This chapter examines the role of SPI and the implications of the exclusion of explicit support for RE in the most widely-used SPI models. The chapter describes the principal characteristics of three RE-specific improvement models that are in the public domain: the Requirements Engineering Good Practice Guide (REGPG), The Requirements Engineering Process Maturity Model (REPM) and the University of Hertfordshire model. The chapter examines the utility of these models and concludes by considering the lessons learned from industrial pilot studies. INTRODUCTION The risks posed to software development projects by weak requirements engineering (RE) practice have become widely recognised during the last decade. This has spawned a great deal of investment in RE methods, tools and training by practitioner organisations, and in RE research by the wider software and systems engineering