In many smaller companies, requirements management is a daunting challenge. Smaller groups mean fewer resources, and many organizations focus their efforts on design, development and testing not on managing requirements. Some small organizations may perceive requirements management as an activity only for large organizations that have complex products and large staffs to support the effort. Poor and uncontrolled requirement engineering processes yield low quality, highly expensive software products. Obviously, customers are highly dissatisfied with such systems. One of the most critical requirement engineering processes that grossly contribute to this misnomer is lack of “effective requirements management” Information Technology Associates (ITA) has had many challenges resulting from some poor and uncontrolled requirements engineering processes. Lack of effective requirements traceability has also had its share in plaguing ITA in software development activities. ITA started small and so it handled its requirements documentation manually as it only dealt with few customer requirements. Time has seen the company expand, and manual handling of customer requirement became difficult. This master thesis therefore aims to investigate: ♦ The state-of-practice, regarding requirements engineering and requirements management within a medium-sized software development company. ♦ How to successfully implement effective requirement management process within the ITA Company. ♦ How to successfully migrate ITA Company into this RE process while ensuring minimum hassles.

Hanteringen av krav är en essentiell del för att lyckas leverera det som kunden efterfrågar hos ett system. Flertalet forskare pekar på att ett misslyckat IT-projekt grundar sig i felhantering av krav. Kringliggande faktorer som påverkar kravhanteringen har identifierats som kommunikation och dokumentation. Syftet är att undersöka de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som förekommer inom agil kravhantering, med avseende på arbetet enligt SAFe. För att kunna identifiera utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer tillämpas empirisk datainsamling, kompletterad med befintlig teori. Undersökningens metod har genomförts i enlighet med en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi, där fem semistrukturerade intervjuer har tillämpats vid den empiriska datainsamlingen. Den kvalitativa studien har använt sig av en abduktiv forskningsansats, detta i syfte att pendla mellan empiri och befintlig teori. Urvalet som har tillämpats i denna undersökning använder en konfidalitet och har tilldelats fiktiva namn, med anledning av att säkerställa trygghet hos respondenterna. Den insamlade empirin har analyserats och diskuterats utifrån befintlig teori som är relevant och stärker undersökningens trovärdighet. Utmaningar som vi har identifierat inom arbetet enligt SAFe är bland annat kopplat till prioritering och anpassning till organisationen. Resultatet påvisar även utmaningar gällande planeringen, med anledning av de långa cyklerna, likaså är anpassningen till den agila rytmen inom alla avdelningar hos organisationen en utmanande aspekt i arbetet. Våran undersökning har påvisat att SAFe har medfört gynnsamma fördelar med organisationens arbete, bland annat förbättrad transparens genom en ökad insikt i varandras arbeten. Likaså visar vår undersökning att den agila kravhanteringen har bidragit med gynnsamma fördelar i hur kraven hanteras, där sprintar och små leveranser är centralt inom arbetet. Beträffande empiri kontra befintlig teori, påvisas likheter och skillnader som bör betraktas, de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som förekommer inom empirin är omtalade i befintlig teori. Däremot presenterar befintlig teori endast generella aspekter som förekommer i det agila arbetet. Empirin bekräftar de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som omnämnas i befintlig teori, men är mer i linje med respondentorganisationens situation och verklighet. De slutsatser som vi har kommit fram till är att befintlig teori presenterar övergripande aspekter utan någon specifik anknytning till en organisations situation. Empirin visar att SAFe har anpassats för att möta respondentorganisationens behov, där teoretiska utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer har bekräftats och kompletterats. / The management of requirements is an essential part of successfully delivering what the customer demands from a system. The majority of researchers point out that a failed IT project is based on mishandling of requirements. Surrounding factors that affect requirements management have been identified as communication and documentation. The purpose is to investigate the challenges and success factors that occur within agile requirements management, with regard to the work according to SAFe. In order to identify challenges and success factors, empirical data collection is applied, supplemented with existing theory. The survey's method has been carried out in accordance with a qualitative research strategy, where five semi-structured interviews have been applied to the empirical data collection. The qualitative study has used an abductive research approach, with the aim of commuting between empiricism and existing theory. The sample that has been applied in this survey uses a confidentiality and has been assigned fictitious names, due to the safety of the respondents. The collected empirical evidence has been analyzed and discussed based on existing theory that is relevant and strengthened the credibility of the investigation. Challenges that we have identified within the work according to SAFe are, among other things, linked to prioritization and adaptation to the organization. The result also shows challenges regarding the planning, due to the long cycles, as well as the adaptation to the agile rhythm within all departments of the organization and challenging aspects in the work. Our investigation has shown that SAFe has brought favorable benefits to the organization's work, including improved transparency through and increased insight into each other's work. Likewise, our thesis shows that the agile requirements management has contributed with favorable advantages in how the requirements are handled, where sprints and small deliveries are central to the work. Regarding empiricism versus existing theory, similarities and differences that should be considered are demonstrated, the challenges and success factors that occur within empiricism are discussed in existing theory. In contrast, existing theory only presents general aspects that occur in agile work. The empirical evidence confirms the challenges and success factors mentioned in existing theory, but is more in line with the respondent organization's situation and reality. The conclusions we have reached are that existing theories present overall aspects without any specific connection to an organization's situation. The empirical evidence shows that SAFe has been adapted to meet the needs of the respondent organization, where theoretical challenges and success factors have been confirmed and supplemented.