Selecting the Most Appropriate Framework for Value Based Requirements Prioritization

The top 3 frameworks as per the evaluation are (in order): TOPSIS [3], Simple Additive Weighting [23] and Wieger‘s Prioritization [15]. TOPSIS came out as the most preferred alternative. It was decided to redo the analysis with TOPSIS itself to compare its output with the results in Fig. 3. The same weights and relative contribution scores are used, only the prioritization algorithm is changed. (The analysis was redone with a 1-9 contribution scale instead of the 1-3-9 scale since the QFD template being used fixed the three values to be entered and couldn‘t be changed. The results were similar and we don‘t report them here.) TOPSIS is used to evaluate itself along with the other frameworks and the output is shown in Fig. 4. TOPSIS results in the similar top 3 frameworks – TOPSIS itself, Simple Additive Weighting and Wieger‘s Prioritization. Based on the analysis of the prioritization approaches of the various frameworks, the authors feel that TOPSIS provided a more accurate ranking than the HoQ model. In order to evaluate our findings the framework was shown to our stakeholders – it was developed in MS Excel® since the current practice at the organization was to gather and manage requirements using Excel worksheets. The framework was well received. However, two critical requirements were uncovered after the initial demos – factoring in prerequisites and the ability to perform hierarchical prioritization. We elaborate on them below.