Requirements Engineering Tools

Requirements engineering (RE) tools are increasingly used to ease the RE processes and allow for more systematic and formalized handling of requirements, change management and traceability. For developers and companies evaluating the use of RE tools it is thus essential to know which RE processes are supported by tools and how they fit to their own priorities. The answer isn´t easy because many sales prospects highlight numerous features-yet leave out to which degree they´re supported and whether all features really matter. To gain insight into how current RE tools adapt to RE activities, we ran a 146-item survey based on the features covered by the ISO/IEC TR 24766:2009, a new framework for assessing RE tool capabilities. We received responses from 37 participants, covering all relevant tools. In addition to the tools´ score in each activity, we assessed their performance in three concrete use scenarios. Our findings can help practitioners select an RE tool as well as provide areas for improvement for RE tools developers.