Binary Priority List for Prioritizing Software Requirements

[Context and motivation] 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. [Question/problem] 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 detail. [Principal ideas/results] 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. [Contribution] The paper demonstrates that the technique can be successfully used to prioritize requirements and is especially suitable for a medium amount of low-level requirements.