GT4CCI: An Approach Based on Grounded Theory for Crosscutting Concerns Identification in Requirements Documents

When crosscutting concerns identification is performed on the activities involved in requirements engineering there are many gains in terms of quality, cost and efficiency throughout the lifecycle of software development. However, despite these gains, this identification faces several difficulties such as the lack of systematization and tools that support it and the difficult to justify why some concerns are identified as crosscutting or not, since this identification is often made without any methodology that systematizes and bases it. In this context, this paper proposes and evaluates an approach based on Grounded Theory, called GT4CCI, for systematizing the process of identifying crosscutting concerns in requirements document. Through the use of GT4CCI it is possible to better modularize the requirements document, make it more consistent, detect possible failures and improve traceability among requirements, adding significant gains in terms of quality and reliability to crosscutting concerns identification and to requirements engineering.