Defining and prioritizing software requirement using gIBIS and AHP method

Abstract

Requirement engineering is an important process in a software development project. During the process there are two activities that are very significant that determine the success of the software development: requirement definition and requirement prioritization. Through this process we can set the scope of the software product and the limitations of product features for each released version. Defining and prioritizing requirements can be done using same approach. gIBIS (graphical Issue-Based Information System) is a proposed approach for the design rationale to describe the reasoning process for the solution that is chosen in order to answer a problem or issue. The graphical representation of the reasoning process using gIBIS can be supported by tools such as Compendium. This paper proposes the implementation of the gIBIS approach in defining software requirements by assigning a score for each alternative and selecting the highest score as a solution. The approach is combined with AHP (Analytical Hierarchical Process) method to set the priority and as the result we can determine the software requirements and also rank the requirements based on its priority. The criteria used in setting the priority include cost, risk, difficulty and stability. The proposed approach (combining of gIBIS and AHP) is demonstrated with a case study of prioritizing requirements for a website development of "IndoSoccerSchool". The result show that the proposed approach can help us generate a list of requirements and give them a score based on priority and the list can give a reference for developing the software based on credible priorities and then manage the software release.