Towards the Verbal Decision Analysis Paradigm for Implementable Prioritization of Software Requirements

Abstract

The activity of prioritizing software requirements should be done as efficiently as possible. Selecting the most stable requirements for the most important customers of a development company can be a positive factor considering that available resources do not always encompass the implementation of all requirements. There are many quantitative methods for prioritization of software releases in the field of search-based software engineering (SBSE). However, we show that it is possible to use qualitative verbal decision analysis (VDA) methods to solve this type of problem. Moreover, we will use the ZAPROS III-i method to prioritize requirements considering the opinion of the decision-maker, who will participate in this process. Results obtained using VDA structured methods were found to be quite satisfactory when compared to methods using SBSE. A comparison of results between quantitative and qualitative methods will be made and discussed later. The results were reviewed and corroborated with the use of performance metrics.

Keywords

• verbal decision analysis
• multi-objective optimization
• software release planning
• ZAPROS III-<i>i</i>