1

Requirements
Prioritization and
Negotiation
KHAQAN ZAHEER
Topic to be Covered 2
 What is Requirement Prioritization (RP)
 Process of RP
 Aspects of RP
 Requirement Prioritization Techniques
 Karl E. Wiegers Model
 Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)
 Requirements Negotiation (RN)
 RN Process
 Effective Practices of RN
 Summary
Requirements Prioritization? 3

 Prioritization helps to identify the most valuable

requirements from a set of requirements by distinguishing
the critical few from the trivial ones.
Process of Requirements Prioritization 4
 For stakeholders to decide on the core requirements for the
system
 To plan and select an ordered, and optimal set of software
requirements for implementation in successive releases
 To trade off desired project scope against some conflicting
constrains such as schedule, budget, resources, time to
market, and quality
 To balance the business benefit of each requirement against
its cost
 To plan components of software architecture and future
evolution of the product with respect to its associated cost
and benefits
Process of Requirements 5
Prioritization
 To select only a subset of the requirements and still produce a
system that will satisfy the customers’ e.g., 1) Notepad, 2)
WordPad, 3) MS Word 4) intelligent suggestions
 To estimate expected customer satisfaction, e.g., Gap analysis
and customer-value analysis
 To get a technical advantage and optimize market
opportunity
 To minimize schedule slippage (plan stability)
 To handle contradictory requirements, focus the negotiation
process, and resolve disagreements between stakeholders
 To establish relative importance of each requirement to
provide the greatest value at the lowest cost
Requirements Prioritization 6

 “The challenge is to select the “right” requirements out of a

given superset of a candidate requirements so that all the
different key interests, technical constraints and
preferences of the critical stakeholders are fulfilled and the
overall business value of the product is maximized.”
-- Günther Ruhe
Prioritization Techniques 7
Categories
 Methods
 Based on quantitative assignment to different
aspects of requirements e.g., cost, time, benefits,
risks
 Easy to aggregate different decision variables into
an overall assessment and lead to faster decisions
 Negotiation Approaches
 Based on subjective measures e.g., intuition,
experience and expert judgement
 Give priorities to requirements by reaching
agreements between different stakeholders
ASPECTS OF PRIORITIZATION 8

 Importance
 Penalty
 Cost
 Time
 Risk
 Volatility
 Other Aspects
 financial benefit, strategic benefit, competitors
 Combining Different Aspects
PRIORITIZATION TECHNIQUES 9

 Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

 Cumulative Voting, the 100-Dollar Test
 Numerical Assignment (Grouping)
 Ranking
 Top-Ten Requirements
 Which Prioritization Techniques to Choose
Analytical Hierarchy Process 10
(AHP)
It is a structured technique for organizing and analyzing complex decisions, based

on mathematics and psychology. 
 Compare all possible pairs of hierarchically classified requirements to determine
which has higher priority and to what extent

The total number of comparisons to perform are: [n x (n-1)]/2 where n
is the number of requirements
 Not suitable for large number of requirements
AHP 11
AHP 12
Cumulative Voting – 100-Dollar 13
Test
 Stakeholders are given 100 imaginary units to distribute
between requirements
 Stakeholder assign units based on their intuition, and
experience and expertise
 Problems:
 Miscalculation: cause points to not add up to 100
 Biasness: stakeholders might allocate more units to
Stakeholders (S) R1 R2 R3
a favorite requirement that others do not prioritize
S1 as highly 40 40 20
S2 30 50 20
S3 40 30 30
Average 37 40 23
Numerical Assignment 14
(Grouping)
 Group requirements into different priority
groups
 Three groups are common: critical, standard,
optional
 Problem:
 stakeholders tend to think that everything is
critical
 every requirement in a group does not get a
unique priority
 Solution: restrict stakeholder on the allowed
number of requirements in each group
Ranking 15

 Requirements are ranked on an ordinal scale or psychometric scale

 Ranking seems more useful for single stakeholder
 Example
 Likert Scale: VH,H,N,L,VL
Top-Ten Requirements 16

 Stakeholders pick top ten requirements for a release

without assigning an internal order between the
requirements
 Suitable for multiple stakeholders of equal importance
 Suitable for evolutionary development
Combining Different Techniques 17

Technique Scale Granularity Sophistication

AHP Ratio Fine Very Complex

Hundred Dollar Test Ratio Medium Easy

Ranking Ordinal Medium Easy

Numerical Assignment Ordinal Coarse Very Easy

Top-Ten - Extremely Coarse Extremely Easy

Steps to use AHP Method 18
 List all of the requirements, features, or use cases that you
wish to prioritize in a spreadsheet
 Define a rating scale (1-9) where 1:lowest, 9: highest
 Identify prioritization aspect e.g. importance, penalty, cost,
risk
 Assign relative weight to each aspect (1-9)
 Estimate the relative benefit that each feature provides to the
customer or the business
 Estimate the relative penalty the customer or business would
suffer if the feature is not included
 Calculate
 Total Value = (Benefit weight * Relative benefit ) + (Penalty weight *
Relative penalty)
Steps to use AHP Method- 19

cont.
 Estimate the relative cost of implementing
each feature
 Developers estimate the relative degree of
technical or other risk associated with each
feature
 Once you enter the estimates into the
spreadsheet, calculates a priority number for
each feature. The formula for the Priority
column is: Priority = value %/ (cost % * cost
weight + risk % * risk weight)
 Sort the list of features in descending order
by calculated priority
 AHP Model
Col# CELL NAME B C D E F G H I J

1 Relative Weights: 1 1 1 1

  Relative Total Relative Relative

2 Requirements Relative Benefit Penalty Value Value % Cost Cost % Risk Risk % Priority
3 Requirement 1 1 1 2 25.0 2 25.0 2 25.0 0.500
4 Requirement 2 1 1 2 25.0 2 25.0 2 25.0 0.500
5 Requirement 3 1 1 2 25.0 2 25.0 2 25.0 0.500

6 Requirement 4 1 1 2 25.0 2 25.0 2 25.0 0.500

7 Totals 4 4 8 100.0 8 100.0 8 100.0 2.000

Relative Scales (1-9) are used.

Total value: =B3*$B$1+C3*$C$1 (Total value = (Benefit weight * Relative benefit ) + (Penalty
weight * Relative penalty)

Value%= 100*D3/$D$7 Value% = 100* Total Value /sum of total value

Cost%= 100*F3/$F$7 Value% = 100* Relative Cost /sum of Relative Cost

Priority=E3/(G3*$F$1+I3*$H$1) Priority = value %/ (cost % * cost weight + risk % *

risk weight)
20
Requirements Negotiation? 21

 Requirements Negotiation involves engaging success-

critical stakeholders in making explicit trade-offs between
required functionality, schedule, time, project or product
stability, and risk without compromising overall system
objectives. 
Negotiation Process 22

 Pre-Negotiation
 Problem definition
 Stakeholder identification
 Goal Elicitation
 Goal analysis
 Negotiation
 Post-Negotiation
 QA reviews
 Definition of contract
Effective Practices for 23
Requirements Negotiation
 Get the right stakeholders
 Establish a teamwork mentality
 Plan team interaction
 Use a Group Support System (GSS)
 Establish a shared vocabulary
 Maintain a list of requirements
 Record requirements attributes
 Manage by probabilities of completion
rather than absolutes
Effective Practices for 24
Requirements Negotiation
(cont..)
 Select an operational approach coupled with
risk assessment
 Plan more than one release at a time
 Re-plan before every new release
 Find a workable solution
 Provide training in the negotiation process
 Use a trained facilitator
 Consider requirements, architecture and
marketplace simultaneously
 Leverage the triple constraint (cost vs. time
vs. scope)
 Identify Win conditions 25
(stakeholder views)
Step 0: Engage the success-critical stakeholders, the people whose
interests must be accommodated in order for the project to succeed.
Step 1: Refine and expand negotiation topics.  Start with a taxonomy of
system requirements that identifies categories for win scenarios.
Step 2: Brainstorm stakeholder win conditions.
Step 3: Converge on win conditions.
Step 4: Define a glossary of key terms.
Step 5: Prioritize win conditions.
Step 6: Surface issues and constraints
Step 7: Build and refine the WinWin Tree: Win Conditions, Issues,
Options, and Agreements until WinWin Equilibrium is achieved.
Step 8: Organize negotiation results.
 Conflict Resolution Strategy
Characteristics of soft, hard and principled strategies
26
SOFT HARD Principled
Participants are friends Participants are adversaries Participants are problem solvers
The Goal is agreement The goal is victory The goal is a wise outcome reached
efficiently and amicably
Make concessions to cultivate Demand concessions as a Separate the people from the
the relationship condition of the relationship problem
Be soft on the people and the Be hard on the problem and the Be soft on the people, hard on the
problem people. problem
Trust others Distrust others Proceed independent of trust
Change your position easily Dig into your bottom line. Focus on interests, not position
Make offers Make Threats Explore interests
Disclose your bottom line Mislead as to your bottom line Avoid having a bottom line
Accept one-sided losses to Demand one-sided gains as the Invent options for mutual gain i.e.
reach agreement price of agreement. win-win situation
Search for the single answer: Search for the single answer: the Develop multiple options to choose
the one they will accept one you will accept from; decide later
Insist on agreement Insist on your position. Insist on using objective criteria
Try to avoid a contest of will Try to win a contest of will. Try to reach a result based on
standards independent of will
Yield to pressure Apply pressure Reason and be open to reason;
yield to principle, no to pressure
Some Key benefits of 27
Requirements Negotiation
 More complete requirements in the early stages of a
project
 Fewer requirements changes during development
 Enabling a shared vision throughout the life cycle
 Negotiation methods preserve the rationale of decision
making
 Control of “Scope Creep”
References 28

 Engineering and Managing Requirements by

Aurum and Wohlin; Spring, 2005
 SOFTWARE ACQUISITION:
REQUIREMENTS
TRADE-OFFS/NEGOTIATIONS (GOLD
PRACTICE)