Simple is Better? - An Experiment on Requirements Prioritisation

The process of selecting the right set of requirements for a product release is highly dependent on how well we succeed in prioritising the requirements candidates. There are different techniques available for requirements prioritisation, some more elaborate than others. In order to compare different techniques, a controlled experiment was conducted with the objective of understanding differences regarding time consumption, ease of use, and accuracy. The requirements prioritisation techniques compared in the experiment are the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and a variation of the Planning Game (PG), isolated from Extreme Programming. The subjects were 15 Ph.D. students and one professor, who prioritised mobile phone features using both methods. It was found that the straightforward and intuitive PG was less time consuming, and considered by the subjects as easier to use, and more accurate than AHP.