Analysis of Conflicts among Non-Functional Requirements Using Integrated Analysis of Functional and Non-Functional Requirements

Conflicts among non-functional requirements are often identified subjectively and there is a lack of conflict analysis in practice. Current approaches fail to capture the nature of conflicts among non-functional requirements, which makes the task of conflict resolution difficult. In this paper, a framework has been provided for the analysis of conflicts among non-functional requirements using the integrated analysis of functional and non-functional requirements. The framework identifies and analyzes conflicts based on relationships among quality attributes, functionalities and constraints. Since, poorly structured requirement statements usually result in confusing specifications; we also developed canonical forms for representing non-functional requirements. . The output of our framework is a conflict hierarchy that refines conflicts among non-functional requirements level by level. Finally, a case study is provided in which the proposed framework was applied to analyze and detect conflicts among the non-functional requirements of a search engine.