Providing software product line knowledge to requirements engineers - a template for elicitation instructions

[Context & Motivation] Developing new software systems based on a software product line (SPL) in so-called application engineering (AE) projects is still a time-consuming and expensive task. Especially when a large number of customer-specific requirements exists, there is still no systematic support for efficiently aligning these non-anticipated requirements with SPL characteristics early on. [Question/problem] In order to improve this process significantly, sound knowledge about an SPL must be available when guiding the requirements elicitation during AE. Thus, an appropriate reflection of SPL characteristics in process-supporting artifacts is indispensable for actually supporting a requirements engineer in this task. [Principal ideas/results] In this paper, a validated template for elicitation instructions that aims at providing a requirements engineer with knowledge about an underlying SPL in an appropriate manner is presented. This template consists of predefined text blocks and algorithms that explain how SPL-relevant product and process knowledge can be systematically reflected into capability-aware elicitation instructions. [Contribution] By using such elicitation instructions, requirements engineers are enabled to elicit requirements in an AE project more effectively.