Abstract
To make recommendations for improving requirements engineering processes, it is critical to understand the problems faced in contemporary practice. We describe a field study whose general objectives were to formulate recommendations to practitioners for improving requirements engineering processes, and to provide directions for future research on methods and tools. The results indicate that there are seven key issues of greatest concern in requirements engineering practice. These issues are discussed in terms of the problems they represent, how these problems are addressed successfully in practice, and impediments to the implementation of such good practices.