1. A method for selectively operating on changed elements in a software development environment having a software project comprising a plurality of version-controlled software development objects and having each changed element comprising a modified version-controlled software development object, the method comprising: generating, for each of the changed elements associated with a defect among a set of at least one defect in the software project, a work item comprising an identifier of the changed element, an operation for the changed element, and a target for said operation; creating a first list having a first set of work items corresponding to changed elements that are to be merged; creating a second list having a second set of work items corresponding to changed elements that are not to be merged; generating a master work list comprising the said work items chronologically ordered by combining the first set of work items from the first list and a second set of work items from the second list; and for each unique version-controlled software development object associated with the changed elements of each work item in the master work list, executing all work items associated with the unique element in chronological order.