Asynchronous requirements engineering: enhancing distributed software development

The major focus of collaborative software development has been on the later stages of the development process, such as system design, coding and testing. In the early stages of collaborative software development, the requirements of a proposed system are usually defined during face-to-face discussions and negotiations. We address the use of discussions and negotiations for requirements definition in an asynchronous and distributed environment. Our main hypothesis is that conflict and negotiation in the requirements engineering phase can be managed in such an environment, provided that the lessons learned in global software development are taken into account.