The inconsistency between theory and practice in managing inconsistency in requirements engineering

The problem of inconsistency in requirements engineering has been in the spotlight of the RE community from the early 1990s. In the early years, inconsistency was perceived in the literature as a problem that needs to be eliminated on sight. More recently, it has become recognized that maintaining consistency at all times is not only infeasible, but also even counterproductive. Based on this recognition, paradigms and tools have been proposed in the RE literature for managing inconsistency. However, over the same period, inconsistency as perceived and managed in practice has not received much attention. Our research aims to better understand the phenomenon of inconsistency and the strategies to address it in RE practice. This paper describes an empirical study investigating practitioners’ perceptions of inconsistency manifestations in RE, their attitudes towards these manifestations, and strategies they apply to address them. The findings of this research led to the two contributions: (a) an explanation of how the ideas of the RE field about managing RE inconsistency are reflected in practitioners’ perceptions of the inconsistency that they encounter in their daily work, and (b) the identification of some barriers that appear to be hindering practitioners’ adoption of the RE field’s inconsistency management strategies, together with possible reasons underlying these barriers.