A Priority-Based Negotiations Approach for Handling Inconsistencies in Multi-Perspective Software Requirements

Inconsistency of multi-perspective requirements specifications is a pervasive issue during the requirements process. However, managing inconsistency is not just a pure technical problem. It is always associated with a process of interactions and competitions among corresponding stakeholders. The main contribution of this paper is to present a negotiations approach to handling inconsistencies in multi-perspective software requirements. In particular, the priority of requirements relative to each perspective plays an important role in proceeding negotiation over resolving inconsistencies among different stakeholders. An algorithm of generating negotiation proposals and an approach to evaluating proposals are also presented in this paper, respectively. This research is supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60703061, the National Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China under Grant No. 60625204, the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant No. 2002CB312004, the National 863 High-tech Project of China under Grant No. 2006AA01Z155, the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 60496324, and the International Science Linkage Research Grant under the Australia-China Special Fund for Science and Technology.