Chapter Summary

Chapter 16: Setting Requirement Priorities

© Karl E. Wiegers

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16.1 Why Prioritize?

 Competition for limited resources  Balance project scope against: ◦ Schedule ◦ Budget ◦ Staff ◦ Quality

 Have multiple options early (which way to go)

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Things that can happen -

 Refusal to set priorities: “it’s all equally important.”

 Biased priorities: 85% are high (although not the case)

 Late-breaking “rapid de-scoping”- in a panicked state

 Too many resources spent on low-priority, eventually-deferred functions

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 Questions to ask

 Is there another way to do this?  What are the consequences of deleting this

requirement?  What is the business impact of delaying this

requirement?  Why would a user be unhappy if this

requirement were missing?  What is the least-important requirement of

all? (can be repeated to build priority list) 4

16.2 Prioritization Techniques

 In or out: stake holders make binary decision

Pair-wise comparison and rank ordering:

Assign unique priority number to each requirement and make pairwise comparison

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 Three level Scale (High, Medium and Low) based on Importance and Urgency

 MoSCoW (Moscow) For each Req, decide, if it is - M: Must - the REQ must be satisfied - S: Should - be but not mandatory - C: Could – implement only permitting - Won’t – will not be implemented

It gives 4 level scale (but no rational) No 2 dimension as in three scale  not highly recommended

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 Priority = value %

(cost % * cost weight) + (risk % * risk weight)

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 Prioritization based on Value, Cost and Risk

-Estimating Relative Customer Value of Features (weight = 1)

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Estimating Feature Priority (weight = 1)

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Prioritization Example: A Word Processor (weight = 1)

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(Weight) (2.0) (1.0) (1.0) (0.5)

Feature RelativeBenefit Relative Penalty

Total Value

Value %

Relative Cost

Cost %

Relative Risk

Risk % Priority

Print a material safety data sheet 2 4 1 1

Query status of a vendor order 5 3 2 1

Generate a Chemical Stockroom inventory report 9 7 5 3

See history of a specific chemical container 5 5 3 2

Search vendor catalog for a specific chemical 9 8 3 8

Maintain a list of hazardous chemicals 3 9 3 4

Modify a pending chemical request 4 3 3 2

Generate an individual laboratory inventory report 6 2 4 3

Check training database for hazardous chemical training record 3 4 4 2

Import chemical structures from structure drawing tools 7 4 9 7

Totals 53 49 155 100.0 37 100.0 33 100.0

Priority = value %

(cost % * cost weight) + (risk % * risk weight)Table . Value, Cost, and Risk

Another Example: Chemical Factory (Exercise)

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(Weight) (2.0) (1.0) (1.0) (0.5)

Feature RelativeBenefit Relative Penalty

Total Value

Value %

Relative Cost

Cost %

Relative Risk

Risk % Priority

Print a material safety data sheet 2 4 8 5.5 1 2.7 1 3.0 1.22

Query status of a vendor order 5 3 13 8.4 2 5.4 1 3.0 1.21

Generate a Chemical Stockroom inventory report 9 7 25 16.1 5 13.5 3 9.1 0.89

See history of a specific chemical container 5 5 15 9.7 3 8.1 2 6.1 0.87

Search vendor catalog for a specific chemical 9 8 26 16.8 3 8.1 8 24.2 0.83

Maintain a list of hazardous chemicals 3 9 15 9.7 3 8.1 4 12.1 0.68

Modify a pending chemical request 4 3 11 7.1 3 8.1 2 6.1 0.64

Generate an individual laboratory inventory report 6 2 14 9.0 4 10.8 3 9.1 0.59

Check training database for hazardous chemical training record 3 4 10 6.5 4 10.8 2 6.1 0.47

Import chemical structures from structure drawing tools 7 4 18 11.6 9 24.3 7 21.2 0.33

Totals 53 49 155 100.0 37 100.0 33 100.0

Priority = value %

(cost % * cost weight) + (risk % * risk weight)Table . Value, Cost, and Risk

Another Example: Chemical Factory

Prioritization

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