A reflection on agile requirements engineering

The software development industry has rapidly accepted agile methods. Empirical studies suggest that due to their flexible and emergent nature, agile methods brought solutions to several chronic problems of traditional software development methods. One among the many is the acceptance of requirements changes at later stages of development. However, knowledge about the solutions that agile brought to requirements engineering (RE) is fragmented. Also, little is known about whether the agile philosophy, while introducing solutions to well-known RE problems from the past, has unintentionally opened new challenges. This paper offers a reflection on this matter. Based on the results of our recently published systematic review on agile RE, we reflect on the differences of 'traditional' and agile RE and the practices adopted by the latter, on the solutions and challenges of agile RE, and on some implications that agile RE might have posed for research and practice.