  Agile approaches tend to focus solely on scoping and simplicity rather than
on problem solving and discovery. This hampers the development of innovative
solutions. Additionally, little has been said about how to capture and
represent the real user needs. To fill this gap, some authors argue in favor of
the application of Creative thinking for requirements elicitation within agile
software development. This synergy between creativeness and agility has arisen
as a new means of bringing innovation and flexibility to increasingly demanding
software. The aim of the present study is therefore to employ a systematic
review to investigate the state-of-the-art of those approaches that leverage
creativity in requirements elicitation within Agile Software Development, as
well as the benefits, limitations and strength of evidence of these approaches.
The search strategy identified 1451 studies. The selected studies contained 13
different and unique proposals. These approaches provide evidence that enhanced
creativity in requirements elicitation can be successfully implemented in real
software projects. We specifically observed that projects related to user
interface development, such as those for mobile or web applications, are good
candidates for the use of these approaches. We have also found that agile
methodologies are preferred when introducing creativity into requirements
elicitation. Despite this being a new research field, there is a mixture of
techniques, tools and processes that have already been and are currently being
successfully tested in industry. Finally, we have found that, although
creativity is an important ingredient with which to bring about innovation, it
is not always sufficient to generate new requirements because this needs to be
followed by user engagement and a specific context in which proper conditions,
such as flexibility, time or resources, have to be met.
