Towards Prioritizing Software Business Requirements in Startups

Well-structured IT enterprises follow structured approaches in developing business software solutions not neglecting that requirements engineering is the cornerstone in any software development. However, most startups carry out ad-hoc requirements engineering approaches and follow the concept of learning by failure after rushing into development. This is because their culture lacks the availability of structured approaches that fits with their dynamic environment and unpredictable business nature and changing market. In this paper, the authors aim at presenting a novel framework that assists in prioritizing requirements in structured manner targeted for the startup business software development. It helps creating a focused development environment without permitting the team to hold unreasonable responsibilities that may end with a product that does not address core domain needs and user satisfaction. This framework contributes in creating a mutual communication ground area between business people, product managers/business analysts and technical team while prioritizing software requirements with respect to software core requirements, supplementary requirements, critical requirements to the process and frequency of use. A pilot evaluation is carried using a real startup case study in Jordan.