A Study of Factors and Proposal of new Framework for Requirements Prioritization for Successive Releases of Application Software Products

Abstract

Software Products development through multiple release cycles goes through newlinerequirements analysis, prioritization, design, development, testing and augmenting existing newlineproducts in order to meet the increasing customer needs, expanding customer base and newlinechanging technological trends and improving device platforms. newlineEach time a software release is planned, the contention of many requirements to be newlineincorporated in the release needs to be resolved. In this decision making process newline Requirements Prioritization assumes significance. The constraints of available time and newlineresources need to be balanced with realizable Business Value in long term and short term. newlineWhile a number of methodologies are proposed by Researchers, practical application of these newlinemethods for requirements prioritization is hindered as they do not indicate to easy, simple newlinemethods that are scalable, flexible and facilitate release planning. newlineThis research focuses on identifying factors that impact requirements prioritization for the newlinesoftware products/applications building and continuing to meet customers needs. A study newlinehas been carried out with a questionnaire designed based on industry experience to gather newlineinformation on practices related to Requirements Prioritization in software development in newlinedifferent organizations. Based on the Information gathered, Qualitative analysis has been newlinecarried out grouping the parameters to reflect relevant areas in product development and newlineidentify important factors for requirements prioritization. The goal of the present research newlineeffort is to evolve effective, simple and scalable Framework for Requirements Prioritization newlinefor software products development undergoing continuous changes and releases. newlineThe thesis provides improved understanding of requirements prioritization in the context of newlineoff-the-shelf products and custom made products, based on qualitative analysis of the factors newlineeffecting prioritization of requirements. The data is grouped in to 3 datasets large, newlinemedium, small - based on the size of the organization and comparison across the three data newlinesets further enhanced the understanding of various factors impact on requirements newlineprioritization under varying nature of software developed. A case study is conducted to newlineanalyze factors associated with requirements impacting releases. newlineA new framework, named ABC Framework has been designed taking in to account newlineparameters of relevance in requirements prioritization to enable multi level decision making. newlineThe design enables grouping requirements into 3 classes across 5 levels to reflect the newlinepractical development process and parameters. For enabling ease of usage, three innovative newlinemethods have been suggested to apply the framework in practice. First method represents the newlineframework in the form of sets and requirements association in the sets. Second one has a newlineunique number representation scheme to allow visual interpretation of the various factors newlineinfluence on the requirements prioritization. The third one enables simple use of Excel work newlinesheets to capture classification of requirements based on parameters of importance. newlineComparison of the ABC framework with four significant Requirements Prioritization newlinemethods has been carried out and relative advantages of the proposed framework have been newlinepresented. newline