Femmer & Frattini's new RE theory reframes quality as information flow

Henning Femmer and Julian Frattini have published a vision paper on arXiv (2607.21319, July 23, 2026) that fundamentally reframes requirements engineering (RE) quality. Their proposed theory moves beyond vague contextual appeals by modeling RE as the transfer of discrete 'information particles'—units of domain knowledge—between roles and artifacts. In this view, quality is determined by the effectiveness and efficiency of information flow from sources (e.g., stakeholders) to targets (e.g., developers, testers). This unifies artifact-focused quality (e.g., specification correctness) with process-focused quality (e.g., communication efficiency).

The authors demonstrate the theory's practical value with an exemplary simulation of an agile development context. The simulation explains why even a meticulously crafted specification can be ignored or bypassed when the information flow is suboptimal—for example, when developers rely more on direct conversations than documents. By calibrating the RE process to optimize information particle transfer, teams can improve both efficiency and outcome quality. Beyond organizational use, the authors envision this framework as a coherent theoretical lens for analyzing successes or failures in RE processes and artifacts across different project types.