IS Product Enhancements: An exploration of two competing techniques for evaluation of user featiure requests

Time-to-market is critical for product success. Software product managers must quickly determine which features should be included into an IS (Information System) product to satisfy evolving user needs. However, the diverse needs of a large number of anonymous users pose special challenges for quickly analyzing feature requests and selecting a critical subset for product upgrade. This study therefore first investigated the relevance of commonly used prioritization techniques and found the Priority groups method and the Kano survey method appropriate in the context of IS product enhancements. Thereafter exploratory experiments were conducted to compare the efficacy of these two methods. The results of the experiments showed that the Kano survey method was effective in identifying critical features to be implemented into an IS product.

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