Demystifying Release Definition: From Requirements Prioritization to Collaborative Value Quantification

Abstract

[Context and motivation] Most software products are developed and improved over time in iterative releases. Defining the contents of the next product release is an important, but challenging activity, as a large number of potential requirements is typically available. [Question/problem] Implementing these requirements in a single release is impossible, and prioritizing them is hard: which requirements deliver the most value, and what is their value exactly? A study among European software companies in the context of the Flexi project revealed that this release definition challenge is still significant, in spite of the available state-of-the-art. [Principle ideas/results] This paper reports on a number of myths surrounding release definition we observed during the study, and explains shortcomings of the available state-of-the-art in a context where many requirements should be considered and defining and quantifying value is hard. [Contribution] We then propose a novel approach for reducing the risk of making wrong choices, based on emerging social technologies.