Fricker, Grunbacher - Negotiation Constellations.pdf - Psychologia - koni86

Negotiation Constellations – Method Selection

Framework for Requirements Negotiation

Samuel Fricker 1,2 and Paul Grünbacher 3

1 University of Zurich, Department of Informatics

Binzmuehlestrasse 14, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland

fricker@ifi.uzh.ch

2 ABB Switzerland Ltd., Power Systems

Bruggerstrasse 72, 5400 Baden, Switzerland

samuel.fricker@ch.abb.com

3 Johannes Kepler Universität (JKU),

Institute for Systems Engineering and Automation

4040 Linz, Austria

paul.gruenbacher@jku.at

Abstract. Customers, product managers, project leaders, architects, engineers,

and other stakeholders are negotiating requirements throughout the software

lifecycle. Even-though fundamental for understanding requirements engineer-

ing, negotiation has not been as thoroughly studied as other facets of this engi-

neering discipline. This paper casts requirements engineering into the landscape

of negotiation by describing a framework for selecting tactics and methods for

various negotiation constellations that can be encountered in a software organi-

zation. The framework opens perspectives that are essential for understanding

the behavior of people involved in development projects, for understanding how

development teams and stakeholders create mutually satisfactory solutions, and

for giving tactical advice to practitioners.

1 Introduction

Software development is embedded in a complex network of stakeholders that include

roles like customers, development managers, product managers, team leaders, architects,

developers, testers, and maintainers [10]. The interplay between these stakeholders is a

fundamental success factor, as every role brings essential knowledge, capabilities, and

skills that are essential to design great new products.

However, designing appropriate requirements engineering processes for such com-

plex stakeholder networks is still a major challenge [7]. For instance, there are multiple

organizational interfaces at which requirements are engineered: it can be observed that

stakeholders pursue their own objectives by trying to delegate the fulfillment of some

goals while satisfying those of others [33]. This happens not only during early-phase

requirements engineering, but also in design and change management activities

throughout the whole development process [5,11].

The lack of approaches for tailoring requirements engineering to the structure of stake-

holder networks and to the specific negotiations situations between these stakeholders

B. Paech et al. (Eds.): REFSQ 2008, LNCS 5025, pp. 37 –51, 2008.

S. Fricker and P. Grünbacher

leads to misunderstandings and conflicts. As a consequence, development effort is wasted

on insignificant features, rather than being invested on features that are most essential for

stakeholder satisfaction.

In response to these challenges posed by complex stakeholder networks, this paper

presents a framework for helping stakeholders to understand their negotiation constel-

lations and for selecting appropriate negotiation tactics and methods . The proper

selection of negotiation tactics and methods enables effective communication and

acknowledgment of requirements, helps exploiting opportunities for stakeholder satis-

faction by creating win-win situations, and establishes trust relationships that are

important for development efficacy and high-impact development results.

Beyond its usefulness for practitioners, we hope that the framework will aid re-

quirements engineering researchers to structure and understand the landscape of nego-

tiation in requirements engineering. The framework references knowledge from the

broad field of negotiation and identifies a number of research opportunities for under-

standing on how to handle requirements adequately in specific stakeholder constella-

tions.

This paper presents the negotiation constellations framework and its implications

on requirements engineering practice and research. The paper is structured as follows:

Section 2 outlines background and related work. Section 3 presents the negotiation

constellation framework. Section 4 illustrates the use of the framework. Section 5

discusses the presented work. Section 6 summarizes and concludes the paper.

2 Background and Related Work

This work has been motivated by challenges identified at ABB. It relates to a case

where product managers coordinate distributed development teams with requirements

that are derived from agreements with diverse stakeholders. Conflicts arise almost

inevitably in such cases as project stakeholders pursue mismatching goals and try

to influence each other [12,19]. For example, in a software product organization goals

need to be considered from the market, partners, customers, users, company manage-

ment, sales & marketing, research & innovation, consultants, development, and

support [1,32]. Successful requirements engineering demands agreement on the

requirements [15].

Key approaches that can be applied to reach such an agreement include analysis of

viewpoints [14], stakeholder and goal modeling [15,33], and negotiation [6,12,16,31].

The negotiation process starts when the stakeholders communicate their goals. It ends

when all have agreed to a specified contract [26].

There are two fundamental ways to manage this negotiation process with regard to

how agreements are established in the stakeholder network. First, the process can be

managed by a requirements engineer who elicits the positions and perspectives of

stakeholders, documents them in a comprehensive goal model, facilitates the resolu-

tion of conflicts, and communicates the obtained global stakeholder agreement.

Second, the negotiation process can emerge out of the activities of stakeholders

that perform the organizational roles they are assigned to. Instead of one large nego-

tiation that involves all stakeholders, negotiation is carried out as a number of

Negotiation Constellations – Method Selection Framework for Requirements Negotiation 39

Market Segment

Company

Steering Committee

Customer

M&S Manager

R&D Manager

Line Manager

Customer

Development Team

Market Segment

Product Manager

Project Leader

and Architect

Supplier

Customer

Developer

Supplier

Customer

Developer

Fig. 1. Exemplary contract model of a software organization. Ellipses represent hierarchically

nested groups of people or individuals. Arrows represent contracts that are agreed upon.

small-scale activities that are performed rather independently. This leads to a number

of agreements between different stakeholders [7]. An example of such distributed

negotiations is illustrated by the contract model shown in Fig. 1.

Independent of the process flavor, questions about the tactical approach and meth-

odology appear in these different negotiation constellations. Requirements engineers

needs to understand how to perform win-win negotiations, how to reach value-

creating results, and how to deal with group dynamics. Stakeholders need to under-

stand their role in the negotiation process and what they can and should do to achieve

their objectives by influencing other stakeholders. Hence, the following issues need to

be addressed:

- Correctly conceptualizing the negotiation constellation,

- Understanding the advantages and limitations of the constellation,

- Knowing the negotiation tactics and methods appropriate for the constellation,

- Identifying those stakeholders that need to be involved in negotiation, and

- Selecting and pursue the most appropriate negotiation approach.

The knowledge in the negotiation constellations framework assists stakeholders

with these questions and provides negotiation advice. It also is used to improve re-

quirements engineering processes by capturing, organizing and making available

good negotiation practices and experiences.

The negotiation constellations framework is similar to reference models like CMMI

for software process improvement [13], and the good practice guide for requirements

engineering improvement [29]. It focuses, however, on requirements negotiation and

adds criteria for selecting tactics and methods that are based on the situations in which

they are applied. In contrast to other reference models, the negotiation constellations

framework also supports capturing and structuring experience to support learning

software organizations [28].

S. Fricker and P. Grünbacher

3 Negotiation Constellations

Understanding negotiation constellations is essential for efficiently finding good agree-

ments among stakeholders. This section elaborates how the negotiation constellation

framework advises practitioners and supports requirements engineering process im-

provement by describing its structure and use.

Negotiation is an interpersonal decision-making process to find a mutually accept-

able agreement to a conflict [16,31]. Agreements can contain the planned realization

of needs and objectives, the use of capabilities, the guarantee of financial or other

backing, or the provision of knowledge [8].

A negotiation constellation is characterized by a number of facets that influence

the selection of negotiation methods. Key facets include the characteristics of the

negotiating parties, the relationships between these parties, and the negotiation object

[31]. Other facets include the geographical distance between the parties [6] and their

expected conflict behavior [30].

The negotiation constellations framework describes a taxonomy of negotiation

constellations and provides specific advice for negotiation tactic, methodology, and

experience for a given negotiation constellation. The framework was shaped to be

relevant, simple, specific, and orthogonal. It contains knowledge that is useful for

advising practitioners in a software development context. The number of taxonomic

units is intentionally kept small. The decision criteria are simple and can be applied

intuitively. The advice is given at a coarse level of granularity that still allows differ-

entiating negotiation approaches. The number of fields in which the same negotiation

tactics and techniques are found is minimized, however without compromising speci-

ficity.

The negotiation constellations framework has been defined with the following re-

search process in collaboration with practitioners. Situations have been identified that

require applying different negotiation tactics and techniques. These situations were

then exemplified with stereotypical descriptions of software development organiza-

tions and relationships between various organizational roles. Finally, negotiation,

requirements engineering and software engineering literature was studied to identify

tactics and methods that adequately address the negotiation situations.

Subsection 3.1 describes commonalities of negotiation situations in a software engi-

neering context. Subsection 3.2 describes the taxonomy of negotiation constellations.

Subsections 3.3 and 3.4 describe tactical and methodological advice.

3.1 Common Negotiation Characteristics in Software Organizations

Negotiation has been studied in many different contexts, including product sales,

employment contracts, personal affairs, politics, and peace keeping. Negotiation oc-

curs 1) to agree on how to share or divide limited resources such as money, time and

staff; 2) to create something new that neither party could do on its own; or 3) to re-

solve a conflict between parties. By choosing options other than negotiation, people

may fail to achieve their goals, get what they need, or manage conflicts as smoothly

as they might like to [16].

Negotiation in a software organization is special because a number of factors in the

negotiation context are predetermined. This significantly reduces the variability of

Negotiation Constellations – Method Selection Framework for Requirements Negotiation 41

general negotiation situations and allows simplifying the negotiation constellation

framework. The factors that are specific to software organizations concern the nego-

tiation object, conflict management, and opportunities for renegotiations.

Bargaining over a single issue like a price is rare. Instead, people seek win-win re-

sults that occur when a mutually acceptable solution is sought. Win-win negotiation

involves a number of issues that are negotiated together . For instance, a customer

may want to reduce the price of a software solution or service, but this is typically

negotiated together with other contractual elements like the scope of the solution or

service. In other circumstances, people negotiate a set of concerns and objectives such

as needs, requirements, and design decisions.

A number of conflict resolution styles are differentiated in negotiation, depending

on the negotiators interest in his own outcome and in the other negotiator’s outcome

[27]. This dual-concerns model is illustrated in Fig. 2.

high

Yielding

Problem-

Solving

Compromising

Avoiding

Dominating

low

Concern about own outcomes

high

Fig. 2. Dual-concerns model of negotiation behavior [27]. The grey area highlights the conflict

resolution style in a software organization centered on problem solving or compromising.

The conflict resolution style that should preferably be adopted in a software or-

ganization is problem solving , or compromising when consensus cannot be reached

[23]. The issues that are negotiated in a software organization are complex: a synthe-

sis of ideas is needed to come up with mutually satisfactory solutions, and time is

available for such problem solving. Resources, skills and knowledge are possessed by

different parties. Hence, commitment is needed from these other parties for successful

implementation, with one party alone not being able to solve the negotiated problems.

Yielding to another party should not be done because the issues negotiated are impor-

tant, in the responsibility of the negotiators, and ultimately connected to their career.

For the same reason, avoiding the other party is inappropriate. Finally, the other party

should not be dominated because the negotiated issues are too complex and the nego-

tiation partners have high degree of competence in their areas.

In software organizations, a number of opportunities for renegotiation are institu-

tionalized. For example, change management processes are established to

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