Prioritizing Requirements
Prioritizing requirements will help us manage them more effectively.
Is Prioritization Dependent on Project Management Approach?
Mostly yes.
In the predictive approach, the requirements, by their nature, must be made in a certain order. After the features that should be in the final product are defined, the activities are determined and the timeline of the project is revealed by establishing the predecessor and successor relations. As the activities on the timeline are completed, deliveries of the product are produced and progress is made step-by-step towards the final product.
In the agile approach, the dependencies between the requirements do not arise from the nature of the work. The features that should be in the product can be ordered and produced according to the customer’s requests. In the agile approach, prioritizing the requirements is an important step. Stakeholders should spend the necessary time and effort to determine the priority value of each requirement.
Prioritization Techniques in Agile Approach
There are many prioritization techniques suggested in the agile approach.
- Eisenhower prioritization matrix
- Value-Effort matrix
- Value-Risk matrix
- Value-Complexity matrix
- MoSCoW model
- Kano model
- Peer Comparison
- 100 Points Model
- Opportunity scoring
- Story mapping
- ICE Prioritization model
- RICE Prioritization model
You can find explanations about only four of these models below. The models that I have shared the details of below are important for the PMP Exam.
Kano Model
Requirements fall into three basic categories: Essential, Performance, and Excitement.
The first are the Base or Threshold attributes. These are the minimum expectations of the customer. Providing these does not greatly increase satisfaction, but dissatisfaction occurs if they are not provided. For example, imagine you are renting a room in a hotel. Your basic expectations are hot water, a clean bed, the operation of the heating or cooling system in the room, the lockable door. There is nothing extra that pleases you in these items. However, if one of them is not provided, you will complain. Each is a minimum requirement.
The second is Performance attributes, also called Satisfactory. The more these are provided, the greater the satisfaction. The opposite is also true. The less you provide them, the greater the dissatisfaction. If we go back to our hotel example; You went down to breakfast in the morning and encountered the open buffet. The more options you see in the open buffet, the more satisfaction you will have. There is an open buffet, but if the number of options is less, then the level of satisfaction will decrease.
The last are the Exciting qualities, also called Delighter. These are not the basic expectations of the customer. However, if it is provided, customer satisfaction will increase. For example, when you return to your hotel room and find a complimentary drink and fruit, you may be positively surprised.
MoSCoW Model
In this technique, the requirements are divided into four categories;
The “Must Have” category is the category with the most important requirements. Otherwise, the system will not work.
The “Should Have” category is the second most important category. This category includes what the customer absolutely wants.
The “Could Have” category includes optional features.
The “Won’t Have” category includes features that will not be included in the project.
Let’s take the MoSCoW model as an example for a couple who are aiming to buy a caravan.
The “Must Have” requirement in a caravan is a sleeping area. This feature is the most basic requirement of all caravan buyers. Legal obligations can also be given as an example to this category. For example, the requirement for your caravan to be licensed.
In the category of “Should Have”, it is not mandatory for all caravans, but we can give an example especially the customer’s desire to take a shower with hot water in the caravan.
For the “Could Have” category, an example is the presence of a television in the caravan. After the obligatory and most basic needs are met, it can be considered as a need that can be met if we have a budget left and space is available in the caravan.
For the category of “Won’t Have”, an example can be given such as not having a carpet in the caravan.
Thus, when a customer decides to have a private caravan built, the caravan design company will advance the design and development stages according to these needs.
Peer Comparison
Each requirement is compared with another to understand which requirements are more important than the others. In the example below, the rows and columns are compared with each other and it is calculated which factor is preferred more than the others at the bottom. When the total numbers are arranged from largest to smallest, the requirements have priority over each other.
100 Point Model
After the requirements are determined, each decision maker is given a quota of 100 points. Decision makers write the 100 points by distributing them to the requirements. A decision maker may award all 100 points to a single requirement if he wishes.
After all the decision makers distribute their scores, these scores are added up and the requirements are ordered from high to low according to these scores.
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