Empirical Evaluation of Two Requirements Prioritization Methods in Product Development Projects

Abstract

Abstract. Requirements prioritization is recognized as an important but difficult activity in product development. The literature offers methods for requirements prioritization, but many authors report that practices in companies are mostly informal. In this study, we evaluated two requirements prioritization methods from the requirements engineering literature in industrial product development projects. In the first case, the users of the system evaluated the pair-wise comparison technique [5] for prioritizing user needs. In the second case, practitioners evaluated Wiegers' method [18] for change requests. The findings from the cases provide information about the suitability of the prioritization methods for product development work. In addition, our findings indicate why it might be challenging for practitioners to employ a requirements prioritization method.

Requirements Prioritization

“…The methods are based on quantitatively assigning values to different aspects of requirements while negotiation approaches focus on giving priorities to requirements by reaching agreement between different stakeholders [39]. Further, negotiation approaches are based on subjective measures and are commonly used when analyses are contextual and when decision variables are strongly interrelated.…”

“…The total number of comparisons to perform with AHP are n × (n-1)/2 (where n is the number of requirements) at each hierarchy level, which results in a dramatic increase in the number of comparisons as the number of requirements increases. Studies have shown that AHP is not suitable for large numbers of requirements [39,42]. Researchers have tried to find ways to decrease the number of comparisons (e.g.…”

“…When using other techniques (explained below) a consistency ratio is not necessary since all requirements are directly compared to each other and consistency is always ensured. Some studies indicate that persons who prioritize with AHP tend to mistrust the results since control is lost when only comparing the requirements pair-wise [34,39]. The result from a prioritization with AHP is a weighted list on a ratio scale.…”

“…One reason is that requirements on higher abstraction levels tend to get higher priority in pair-wise comparisons [39]. For example, if prioritizing requirements in a car, a lamp in the dashboard cannot be compared with having a luggage boot.…”

Exploring Software Product Management decision problems with constraint solving - opportunities for prioritization and release planning

“…ordinal or ratio [22]. Prioritization methods have also been empirically investigated exemplified by Lehtola et al [27] finding several problems of practice, including that stakeholders sometimes find it difficult to estimate how much more valuable one requirement is than another on a ratio scale. Practitioners also sometimes find it difficult to estimate which number in a priority grouping to give to factors.…”