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Overcoming Scalability Issues in Analytic Hierarchy Process with ReDCCahp: An Empirical Investigation

  • Research Article - Computer Engineering and Computer Science
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Abstract

Software requirements prioritization is considered a vital activity in developing software in order to reduce the risk of costly software failures. This research proposed a new solution for solving the scalability issues faced by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) technique, namely removing eigenvalues and introducing the dynamic consistency checking algorithm into AHP (ReDCCahp). This aims to reduce the required number of pairwise comparisons, improving the efficiency and effectiveness of AHP. An empirical investigation was performed to evaluate the proposed solution, comparing ReDCCahp with the AHP. This comparison aims to show which of the two techniques is more scalable, more efficient, understandable, easier to use, less time consuming, needs less effort, and preferred by the participants in practice. A controlled experiment was carried out on a group of 84 participants who were asked to prioritize 42 requirements related to the online flea market system, using the two techniques in various orders. The experiment’s findings reveal that the participants using ReDCCahp had better ability to prioritize more software requirements (more scalable) with lower effort, shorter time, lower complexity, and higher understandability than using AHP. Furthermore, the participants preferred using ReDCCahp over AHP. The overall results confirm that using ReDCCahp is more effective and helpful than AHP and has the ability to solve the problems faced by AHP in prioritizing software requirements. Therefore, ReDCCahp is suitable to be implemented in real environments. This will contribute in helping software companies and related experts to enhance the quality of the proposed software.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computing and Informatics, Multimedia University, 63100, Cyberjaya, Malaysia

    Iyas Ibriwesh, Sin-Ban Ho & Ian Chai

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  1. Iyas Ibriwesh
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  2. Sin-Ban Ho
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Correspondence to Iyas Ibriwesh.

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Ibriwesh, I., Ho, SB. & Chai, I. Overcoming Scalability Issues in Analytic Hierarchy Process with ReDCCahp: An Empirical Investigation. Arab J Sci Eng 43, 7995–8011 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13369-018-3283-2

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