  In large-scale automotive companies, various requirements engineering (RE)
practices are used across teams. RE practices manifest in Requirements
Information Models (RIM) that define what concepts and information should be
captured for requirements. Collaboration of practitioners from different parts
of an organization is required to define a suitable RIM that balances support
for diverse practices in individual teams with the alignment needed for a
shared view and team support on system level. There exists no guidance for this
challenging task. This paper presents a mixed methods study to examine the role
of RIMs in balancing alignment and diversity of RE practices in four automotive
companies. Our analysis is based on data from systems engineering tools, 11
semi-structured interviews, and a survey to validate findings and suggestions.
We found that balancing alignment and diversity of RE practices is important to
consider when defining RIMs. We further investigated enablers for this balance
and actions that practitioners take to achieve it. From these factors, we
derived and evaluated recommendations for managing RIMs in practice that take
into account the lifecycle of requirements and allow for diverse practices
across sub-disciplines in early development, while enforcing alignment of
requirements that are close to release.

Software Engineering