Agile requirements engineering practices: a survey in Brazilian software development companies

TL;DR

This survey investigates the prevalent agile requirements engineering practices in Brazilian software companies, highlighting their recent adoption, perceived importance, and the challenges faced in their implementation.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of agile RE practices in Brazil, categorizing methods used and exploring the relationship between experience and perceptions.

Findings

Most methods are used for less than five years.

Significant challenges remain in applying these methods effectively.

Perceived importance varies with professional experience.

Abstract

Requirements Engineering (RE) is one of the prime areas in software development. Since agile software development englobes several emerging techniques and advocates for continuous improvement, it urges the question of which agile RE practices are currently most used, their characteristics, and the challenges in their employment. The aim of this work is to investigate and categorize the collection and specification of agile requirements practices based on how professionals perceive their importance for a software project that applies agile methodologies. Thus, a survey was carried out with forty-six (46) Brazilian software development professionals, inquiring which methods are used for the collection and specification of agile requirements, as well as the features, benefits, and difficulties when employing the methods. The responses allowed us to perform data analysis and identify the relationships between the respondents' experience and the viewpoints on the collection methods and the agile requirements specification. In addition, it was noted that the adoption of these methods is still very recent. They have mainly been used for less than five years. Moreover, it was noted that, for most respondents, there are yet significant challenges and advances to be made for better efficiency in applying the informed methods.