Diagnosing Inconsistent Requirements Preferences in Distributed Software Projects

Abstract: Requirements specification is often performed by stakeholders who are organizationally and geographically distributed. In these scenarios preferences regarding requirements can become inconsistent and stakeholders need assistance in identifying reasonable tradeoffs. In this paper we introduce a basic approach that actively supports distributed groups of stakeholders in the specification of consistent requirement preferences. The approach automatically detects minimal sets of preferences that have to be adapted in order to restore global consistency in the given collection of preferences. This approach can be seen as a core technology of requirements management processes in (distributed) software projects.