Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is one of the important multi-criteria decision making algorithms which is used to rank the software requirements on the basis of different criteria like performance, usability, reliability, cost, etc. In the area of software engineering, different methods have been developed to rank the software requirements using AHP like PRGFOREP, GOASREP, etc. Based on our literature review we identify that in software requirements selection (SRS) less attention is given to check the consistency of the “pairwise comparison matrices” (PCM). The ranking values of the software requirements would be consistent only when the PCM would be consistent. Therefore, to address this issue we proposed a method for SRS by generating the different patterns and sub-patterns of the PCM. In our case study, we have generated the 8 patterns and for each pattern we have generated the 64 sub-patterns. As a result, we have generated 512 sub-patterns of PCM and stored the results into a database so that the information stored in the database could be used for requirements analysis. The applicability of the proposed method is explained with the help of a case study.

Software requirements selection, AHP, Pairwise comparison matrices, Types of requirements

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