  Context: For many years, we have observed industry struggling in defining a
high quality requirements engineering (RE) and researchers trying to understand
industrial expectations and problems. Although we are investigating the
discipline with a plethora of empirical studies, those studies either
concentrate on validating specific methods or on single companies or countries.
Therefore, they allow only for limited empirical generalisations. Objective: To
lay an empirical and generalisable foundation about the state of the practice
in RE, we aim at a series of open and reproducible surveys that allow us to
steer future research in a problem-driven manner. Method: We designed a
globally distributed family of surveys in joint collaborations with different
researchers from different countries. The instrument is based on an initial
theory inferred from available studies. As a long-term goal, the survey will be
regularly replicated to manifest a clear understanding on the status quo and
practical needs in RE. In this paper, we present the design of the family of
surveys and first results of its start in Germany. Results: Our first results
contain responses from 30 German companies. The results are not yet
generalisable, but already indicate several trends and problems. For instance,
a commonly stated problem respondents see in their company standards are
artefacts being underrepresented, and important problems they experience in
their projects are incomplete and inconsistent requirements. Conclusion: The
results suggest that the survey design and instrument are well-suited to be
replicated and, thereby, to create a generalisable empirical basis of RE in
practice.
