Operationalizing the Requirements Selection Process with Study Selection Procedures from Systematic Literature Reviews

Context: Software organizations working in a market-driven environment have to select requirements from a large pool to be prioritized and put into backlogs for the development organization. Objective: This paper proposes an approach based on study selection in systematic literature reviews and translates the concept to requirements engineering. The rational for doing so is that the selection processes used there have been e↵ective (selecting and finding relevant papers) and e cient (possible to use for a high number of studies, in some cases 10,000 research contributions had to be evaluated). Method: This paper can be classified as a solution proposal, and utilizes hypothetical examples to explain and argue for the method design decisions. Results: The process proposed consists of three main phases, namely establish selection criteria, evaluate selection criteria, and apply selection. On a more fine-grained level, nine activities are specified. Conclusion: Given that the process has been e↵ective and e cient in a similar context, our proposition to be evaluated in future research contributions is that the process leads to e↵ective and e cient decision making in requirements selection.