Supporting Requirements Engineering Research that Industry Needs: The Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering Initiative

TL;DR

This paper discusses the ongoing challenge of aligning Requirements Engineering research with industry needs and introduces the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering Initiative to address this gap.

Contribution

It proposes the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering Initiative to better understand and solve industrial problems faced by practitioners.

Findings

RE is a stable and respected discipline.

Research often does not directly address industry problems.

The initiative aims to bridge the gap between research and industry.

Abstract

In light of the 40th jubilee of Requirements Engineering (RE), roughly 40 experts met in Switzerland to discuss where our discipline stands today. As of today, the common view is, indisputably, that RE as a discipline is stable and respected, as pointed out by Sarah Gregory when covering the seminar in her column to which articles like this one are invited to present ongoing research. However, it is also evident that after 40 years of promising research, conducting research that industry needs is still an ongoing challenge. Research that industry needs means research that solves industrial problems practitioners face; but do we really understand those problems? Here, I want to recapitulate on this research challenge and outline an initiative, the Naming the Pain in Requirements Engineering Initiative, that aims at tackling this problem.