Abstract

The process of selecting software requirements aims to identify the optimal set of requirements that enhances the value of a software release while keeping costs within the budget. It is referred to as the next release problem (NRP) and is classified as a non-deterministic polynomial (NP) hard problem. Additionally, the addressed requirements are complicated by interconnections and other constraints. In the current paper, the NRP is defined as a multi-objective optimization problem with two conflicting objectives, the satisfaction of customers and cost of development, and three constraints to address two real-world instances of the NRP. A hybrid algorithm combining the multi-objective artificial bee colony and differential evolution named (HABC-DE) is proposed in this work. The proposed approach involves management from the original artificial bee colony (ABC) with operators of the differential evolution (DE) algorithm to balance the optimization process's exploitation and exploration stages. The results demonstrated that the suggested algorithm was capable of efficiently generating high-quality non-dominated solutions with 163.48 ± 4.9295 for mean and standard deviation values which can help decision-makers choose the right set of requirements for a new software release production.