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Prioritization of requirements should be influenced by stakeholder needs to ensure maximum value is achieved. Prioritizing software requirements is one of the challenges facing business analysts. Since this is an ongoing process and priorities change as context changes, problems can arise if stakeholders are not involved in determining the importance of requirements.
Priorities tend to shift as change unfolds, old needs are met, and new needs emerge. Therefore, business analysts must maintain an ongoing service of stakeholder and prioritization at various levels, such as:
Prioritization is done at a higher level of abstraction. • Improved according to requirements:
Prioritization is done at a finer level.
- Implementation phase:
Reprioritize based on the order in which they need to be implemented due to technical constraints.
The business analyst should work with the project manager and corporate sponsor (or key stakeholder) to decide at what level to prioritize. Prioritizing at all these levels is helpful because you usually have to change scope and you don’t know where the costs will be.
Prioritization is an important step in business analysis. Stakeholders must be involved, the requirements analyzed, and the impact of various factors that can influence the importance of implementing the requirements must be understood to ensure maximum value is achieved.
The project prioritization process helps create a framework for ranking projects based on a consistent set of variables.
- Kano:
The Kano model suggests that the features available in the final product will determine customer satisfaction with the project. Identify features that provide a high level of end-user satisfaction and prioritize those projects.
- Repayment period:
Payback period is the time it takes to recoup the cost of an investment. Consider both running costs and potential returns when calculating your payback period. Projects with short payback periods are preferable, but project duration and ongoing revenue potential must also be considered. This is a simple method that focuses on cash flow and ignores potential risks and hurdles.
- Present value:
NPV compares the current cost of the project to the ROI. NPV accounts for discounted cash flow potential but omits many non-financial variables.
- Rating model:
A scoring model assigns a numerical value to a project based on criteria provided by decision makers. Higher scores correspond to higher priority projects. • Story Mapping:
Story mapping is the process of creating a virtual map of a user’s product experience. This card helps highlight the features of the product that users are most likely to interact with and therefore the most important. For more information, see the list of downloadable user story templates.
- Moscow law:
Moscow is an acronym for Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have. The MoSCoW method is a priority matrix that quickly sorts options into his four priority categories. This is a variation on the traditional square priority matrix that categorizes projects by urgency and importance. “MoSCoW is an acronym for management commonly used in industries such as project management and software development, but it can also be applied to everyday priorities.
- Analysis hierarchy process:
The Analytical Hierarchy process determines project priorities through a series of pairwise comparisons between projects. For each project, create a numerical score based on the criteria most relevant to your organization’s needs. Higher scores correlate with higher priority projects.
- Data envelope analysis:
Data envelope analysis measures the relative efficiency of similar organizational units. Project managers can use this method to identify more productive units and prioritize projects accordingly.
