Requiremnents Interaction an Conflicts A Rough Set Approach

Rough set theory and approximation spaces introduced by Zdzistaw Pawlak provide frameworks for modeling interaction amongst requirements. These interactions can be viewed as conflicts. The problem here is how to model a combination of complex situations where there are social conflicts (due to differing stakeholder views) and technical conflicts (due to inconsistent requirements). These two sources of conflicts are intertwined. That is, inconsistent requirements often reflect the inconsistent need of stakeholders. The solution consists of a unified requirements interaction framework that simplifies the representation of technical (requirements inconsistency) and social conflicts (stakeholder views). The contribution of this paper is a new socio-technical model. The model makes it possible to represent conflict degrees and trace dependency information. An illustrative example of such a framework is presented. Reasoning about conflict dynamics is made possible by risk patterns.