Requirements Engineering in the Bidding Stage of Software Projects - A Research Preview

[Context and motivation] Before a software project officially starts, there is a stage that has not received much consideration in literature: the pre-contract or bidding stage. [Question/problem] In this phase, basic Requirements Engineering ( RE) activities are conducted without having a budget, yet. In this paper, the SmartOffer project is described, which aims on improving RE during this precontract phase. [Principal idea/results] Therefore, bidding processes of several organizations were analyzed and commonalities/differences were identified. The consolidated process is described in this paper. It consists out of four abstract phases: assessment of demand, conception, proposal, and actual project conduction. Mandatory and optional process steps within these phases allow for being tailored to different companies and products. [Contribution] The consolidated bidding process provides the potential for automation and tool support. In consequence the precontract phase will be more efficient and effective. Building a tool supporting this process as well as evaluating this tool will be addressed in future work to complement this research preview.