Quality Requirements in Practice: An Interview Study in Requirements Engineering for Embedded Systems

Context & motivation: In market-driven software development it is crucial, but challenging, to find the right balance among competing quality requirements (QR). Problem: In order to identify the unique challenges associated with the selection, trade-off, and management of quality requirements an interview study is performed. Results: This paper describes how QR are handled in practice. Data is collected through interviews with five product managers and five project leaders from five software companies. Contribution: The contribution of this study is threefold: Firstly, it includes an examination of the interdependencies among quality requirements perceived as most important by the practitioners. Secondly, it compares the perceptions and priorities of quality requirements by product management and project management respectively. Thirdly, it characterizes the selection and management of quality requirements in down-stream development activities.