Exploring prioritization through systematic literature surveys and case studies

The software development process is a complex process, especially when the software has to be released in a phased manner. The high stakes involved and several constraints on resources lead to the selective implementation of the user requirements at each stage of the development. If the requirements considered, do not fit well, they have to be reprioritized. The objectives of this paper are to create a background related to the area of reprioritization and to create a distinguishable position from the prioritization area. The paper elaborates on the current state of reprioritization practices adopted in the software industry. The gaps in research in the area of reprioritization to present future opportunities for the research community are also analysed. This paper builds on the findings of a systematic literature survey (to analyze state of the art in the area of reprioritization), previous case studies (to gain understanding of real scenarios through limited available information), and more detailed real case study (focussed on reprioritization alone) conducted by fewer multinational software development organizations. Based on our studies it is concluded that the efficient reprioritization methods are required to be adopted in software engineering practices of the organisation in order to sustain in the highly competitive mass market.