Applying Stakeholder Salience Visualization and Fuzzy TOPSIS for Software Requirements Prioritization

Abstract

Software Requirements (SRs) represent the expectations and needs of stakeholders that must be clearly defined before the initiation of software development. Existing approaches for stakeholder identification typically rely on predefined roles and responsibilities; however, they lack systematic mechanisms to classify or prioritize stakeholders based on critical attributes such as power, legitimacy, and urgency. Moreover, these approaches do not adequately address the dynamic nature of stakeholder influence over time. To overcome these limitations, this study proposes a stakeholder modeling approach that integrates fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) with visual analytics. Stakeholders are initially identified based on their roles, and their salience is determined through profile scores derived from the attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency. A three-dimensional decision surface is employed to visualize salience zones, enabling the identification of highly important stakeholders whose involvement is crucial for accurate requirements elicitation. These highly influential stakeholders participate in the requirements elicitation process to identify both functional and nonfunctional requirements of the system. However, in practical scenarios, implementing all elicited requirements is often not feasible. Therefore, the identified SRs are prioritized and selected using the fuzzy TOPSIS method. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a case study of a healthcare management system, highlighting its capability to enhance stakeholder analysis and requirement prioritization. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the robustness and stability of the proposed method.