NORPLAN: Non-functional Requirements Planning for agile processes

Agile software development and project management methodologies, such as Scrum and Extreme Programming, have become very popular in quickly delivering quality Functional Requirements (FRs). However, agile project management methodologies have not adequately captured planning and prioritization activities for crosscutting concerns and non-functional requirements in agile practices. This research proposes project management and requirements quality metrics that would be used to design a risk-driven algorithm to prioritize and plan an improved requirements implementation sequence that is suitable for agile software development methodologies. Unlike the overly simplistic business value prioritization scheme used in methodologies such as Scrum, Non-functional Requirements Planning (NORPLAN) proposes two additional prioritization schemes, namely, Riskiest-Requirements-First and Riskiest-Requirements-Last for improved yet more agile planning for release and sprint cycles using a risk-driven approach. The approach is validated through visual simulation and a case study.