# Where do we stand in requirements engineering improvement today? First results from a mapping study

## TL;DR

This systematic mapping study reviews the current state of requirements engineering process improvement (REPI) research, highlighting a focus on normative assessments over holistic, goal-driven approaches, and emphasizing the need for broader, artifact-quality improvements.

## Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive overview of REPI solutions, their principles, and research evidence, identifying gaps and directions for future research.

## Key findings

- Research mainly focuses on normative assessments and benchmarks.
- Limited emphasis on holistic, goal-oriented REPI approaches.
- Need for more problem-driven research targeting artifact quality.

## Abstract

Context: Requirements engineering process improvement (REPI) approaches have gained much attention in research and practice. Goal: So far, there is no comprehensive view on the research in REPI in terms of solutions and current state of reported evidence. We aims to provide an overview on the existing solutions, their underlying principles and their research type facets, i.e. their state of empirical evidence. Method: To this end, we conducted a systematic mapping study of the REPI publication space. Results: This paper reports on the first findings regarding research type facets of the contributions as well as selected methodological principles. We found a strong focus in the existing research on solution proposals for REPI approaches that concentrate on normative assessments and benchmarks of the RE activities rather than on holistic RE improvements according to individual goals of companies. Conclusions: We conclude, so far, that there is a need to broaden the work and to investigate more problem-driven REPI which also targets the improvement of the quality of the underlying RE artefacts, which currently seem out of scope.