Binary Priority List for Prioritizing Software Requirements

Product managers in software companies are confronted with a continuous stream of incoming requirements. Due to limited resources they have to make a selection of those that can be implemented. However, few prioritization techniques are suitable for prioritizing larger numbers of requirements. Binary Priority List (BPL) is a binary search based technique for prioritizing requirements. Academics and practitioners have referred to it in previous works. However, it has not been described and researched in broad detail. This paper introduces BPL, examines how it can be used for prioritizing requirements and assesses its prioritization process quality by comparing it to another prioritization technique. A facilitating tool was developed and applied in two small Dutch product software companies. The paper demonstrates that the technique can be successfully used to prioritize requirements and is especially suitable for a medium amount of low-level