2 | Requirements Prioritization Strategies
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Prioritization Goals
Prioritization is done for two somewhat distinct
purposes:
1. Defining scope
2. Scheduling implementation
First, we are trying to determine which
requirements ought to be part of the project
and which ones are outside scope. Second, for
the requirements that are deemed to be within
scope of the project, we need to determine which ones are more important than others so that their
implementation can be done early in the project just in case we run out of time; after all, we would
want the more important requirements to be done in case the project is prematurely terminated or the
projects run out of time.
Priority Scales
Effective prioritization requires the use of a ranking scale or some other ranking scheme. A number of
different scales are used in practice to indicate the relative importance of a requirement: categorical
scales as well as linear and nonlinear numeric scales (see Figure 1). A project team decides on the
ranking scheme at the outset of prioritization effort. Initially, a simple categorical scale can be used
to triage requirements that are in or out of scope. Then, a numeric scale can be applied to further
prioritize the requirements that are in scope. Once the requirements are prioritized, the list is ordered
and implementation starts with the most important ones.
Figure 1: Requirements Prioritization Scales
Priority Semantics
All stakeholders need to understand what each priority value means. For a numeric scale, a small value
means a low priority (reduced necessity and less urgency), while a large value indicates a high priority
