Managing requirements in a co-evolution context

Complex artefacts, such as information systems (IS), have multiple aspects and components: business processes, databases, architecture, or software. It is generally agreed that all these should be kept consistent over time. One major issue to preserve consistency is when required evolutions affect multiple aspects or components of the system at the same time. As each evolution requirement can have an impact onto several projects, teams, engineering domains, viewpoints, or system components, the question of "is the consistency link preserved by this requirement?" has to be continuously raised. This paper presents: (i) a framework that defines challenges for RE caused by coevolution; and (ii) an approach to solve some of these RE-related coevolution challenges. The framework was developed based on our experience in three IS evolution projects: ERP installation, baselining of an IS across subsidiaries, and business process improvement driven IS evolution. Each challenge identified in the framework is discussed with respect to our experience with practice and state of the art methods. Our approach was developed for the business process improvement driven IS evolution project, then generalised for the IS baselining project. The approach is presented, and then illustrated with the case of the latter project.