ELFIEP: Evolutionary Lifecycle Framework for Industrial Engineering Practice : A Ten Year Journey of Requirements Inspection Systems Design Methodology (RISDM)

This paper reflects on a decade-long journey into the industrial practices developed for requirements inspection in the Japanese software industry; it proposes an ELFIEP (Evolutionary Lifecycle Framework for Industrial Engineering Practice). We published two papers in RE’13 and RE’14. The first paper introduced the industrial practice of SRS (Software Requirements Specifications) inspection system of a software company. The system is a set of inspection items: inspection processes, techniques, and supporting tools. In the second paper, to encourage wider industrial adoption of requirements inspection systems, we proposed a methodology for designing requirements inspection systems. Called RISDM (Requirements Inspection System Design Methodology), it has been recognized by professional communities in Japan. A number of software companies have adopted the methodology, and are now operating their individual inspection systems. This paper provides a retrospect of the journey to RISDM. Learning from the journey, we propose ELFIEP as a generic framework for the evolution of engineering practice, and discuss insights gained from the journey and the framework.