On the Nature of Links between Requirements and Architectures: Case Studies on User Story Utilization in Agile Development

Communication between requirements engineers and software architects is experienced as problematic. In this paper we present the Requirements Engineering for Software Architecture (RE4SA) model as a tool that supports the communication between these two roles. In the RE4SA model, requirements are expressed as epic stories and user stories, which are linked to modules and features, respectively, as their architectural counterparts. By applying the RE4SA model to a multi-case study, we investigate the nature of the relationships between the requirements and the architectural artifacts. Based on the gained experience, we put forward nine hypotheses for further research on the utilization of user stories in agile RE.