Adaptive Requirements Prioritization (ARP): Improving Decisions between Conflicting Requirements

Prioritization of requirements is a core activity of requirements engineering. Conventionally used to resolve conflicting requirements, it can be performed on a wide variety of attributes, reflecting, for example, stake-holder value, value to business, cost, connectivity, or risk. Its benefit in decision making is unquestionable, yet existing techniques are ineffective for realistic sets of requirements and consequently their adoption by practitioners is scarce, particularly in the fields of hardware-intensive systems. The present research proposes an Adaptive Requirements Prioritization (ARP) method that improves decision making between conflicting requirements due to its principles of multidimensionality and objective-base (the right criteria are used for any particular decision), and its usability due its principles of openness (it can be tailored according to specific project needs) and structure (requirements are grouped in subsets so that existing techniques become effective). The effectiveness of the proposed method is evaluated using Monte Carlo simulation for a variety of priority dimensions and priority levels.