The Functional Architecture Framework for organizing high volume requirements management

In this paper, we present the Functional Architecture Framework (FAF) to support requirements management in software businesses with large numbers of customers and high volumes of requirements for future releases. The FAF assists in maintaining an overview of all pending requirements relating to different components of both the functional and technical software architecture, thereby taking dependencies and product variability in consideration. We show the application of the FAF in three case studies at different software vendors with requirements volumes. Lessons learned are presented based on the usage data of requirements management and the architectural evolution of the products.