Proactive reviews of textual requirements

In large software development products the number of textual requirements can reach tens of thousands. When such a large number of requirements is delivered to software developers, there is a risk that vague or complex requirements remain undetected until late in the design process. In order to detect such requirements, companies conduct manual reviews of requirements. Manual reviews, however, take substantial amount of effort, and the efficiency is low. The goal of this paper is to present the application of a method for proactive requirements reviews. The method, that was developed and evaluated in a previous study, is now used in three companies. We show how the method evolved from an isolated scripted use to a fully integrated use in the three companies. The results showed that software engineers in the three companies use the method as a help in their job for continuous improvements of requirements.