Context: Managing Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) in software projects is challenging, and projects that adopt Model-Driven Development (MDD) are no exception. Although several methods and techniques have been proposed to face this challenge, there is still little evidence on how NFRs are handled in MDD by practitioners. Knowing more about the state of the practice may help researchers to steer their research and practitioners to improve their daily work. Objective: In this paper, we present our findings from an interview-based survey conducted with practitioners working in 18 different companies from 6 European countries. From a practitioner's point of view, the paper shows what barriers and benefits the management of NFRs as part of the MDD process can bring to companies, how NFRs are supported by MDD approaches, and which strategies are followed when (some) types of NFRs are not supported by MDD approaches. Results: Our study shows that practitioners perceive MDD adoption as a complex process with little to no tool support for NFRs, reporting productivity and maintainability as the types of NFRs expected to be supported when MDD is adopted. But in general, companies adapt MDD to deal with NFRs. When NFRs are not supported, the generated code is sometimes changed manually, thus compromising the maintainability of the software developed. However, the interviewed practitioners claim that the benefits of using MDD outweight the extra effort required by these manual adaptations. Conclusion: Overall, the results indicate that it is important for practitioners to handle `NFRs in MDD, but further research is necessary in order to lower the barrier for supporting a broad spectrum of NFRs with MDD. Still, much conceptual and tool implementation work seems to be necessary to lower the barrier of integrating the broad spectrum of NFRs in practice.

Background: Successful transfer of the results of research projects into practice is of great interest to all project participants. It can be assumed that different transfer mediums fulfill technology transfer (TT) with different levels of success and that they are impaired by different kinds of barriers. Objective: The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding about the different mediums used for TT in software engineering, and to identify barriers weakening the success of the application of such mediums. Method: We conducted an exploratory study implemented by a survey in the context of a German research project with a broad range of used mediums. Results: The main reported barriers were low expectations of usefulness, no awareness of existence, lack of resources, or inadequateness in terms of outdated material or being in an immature state. Conclusions: We interpreted our results as symptoms of a lack of a dissemination plan in the project. Further work will be needed to explore the implications for the transfer of research results (knowledge and techniques) to practice.

Context: Applying model driven techniques can lead to several benefits, but their adoption entails also numerous issues. Goal: We aim at understanding the benefits and barriers on the adoption of the modelling techniques for embedded systems developed in a large German research project. Method: We replicate a survey conducted in the Italian industry about relevance, benefits, and problems of software modelling and model driven techniques. Results: With respect to the original study, we could confirm design support and quality of software as achieved benefits. On the side of the barriers, too much effort required, lack of competencies and lack of supporting tools were confirmed. Other barriers were confirmed as not having an impact: refusal from management, cost of supporting tool, fear of lock-in. Conclusions: We observed that even for the not mature modelling techniques in our context of study, a few benefits and a large number of barriers (or lack of) reported in the original study and in literature were confirmed.