FEDA-NRP: A fixed-structure multivariate estimation of distribution algorithm to solve the multi-objective Next Release Problem with requirements interactions

Abstract

In the development of a software product, the Next Release Problem is the selection of the most appropriate subset of requirements (tasks) to include in the next release of the product, such that the selected subset maximises the overall satisfaction of the stakeholders and minimises the total cost. Furthermore, in most cases, requirements or tasks cannot be developed independently, as there are dependencies between them, which must be respected in the selection for the next release. In this paper, we approach the Next Release Problem as a constrained bi-objective optimisation problem. The main contribution is the design of an Estimation of Distribution Algorithm that exploits domain knowledge, i.e. the dependencies between the requirements, to define the structure of a Bayesian network that models the relationships between the binary variables (requirements) to be optimised. The use of a Bayesian network with a fixed structure reduces the complexity of the search process, since it is unnecessary to learn the structure at each iteration of the algorithm. Moreover, it ensures that the sampled individuals are always valid with respect to the required dependencies. The second main contribution is the generation of a corpus of synthetic datasets with cost estimations derived from agile and classic management methodologies. Standard multi-objective metrics are computed in order to assess our proposal and compare it with other evolutionary multi-criterion optimisation algorithms, determining that it is the optimal choice when dealing with complex datasets.