EasyWinWin:

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EasyWinWin

• A Groupware-Supported Methodology for
  Requirements Negotiation
• CS 577A, 510

Systems Engineering Automation Johannes Kepler
Universität Linz
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The Challenge Avoiding Requirements Mismatches
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Software / IT Challenges

• 30 of software development projects fail
• 70 of the remainder
• Are over budget by 189
• Behind schedule by 222
• More than 50 of this trouble is caused by
  inadequate requirements definition

352 companies, 8000 Projects. Source The
Standish Group, 1995
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Why Software Projects Fail
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WinWin

• Success-critical stakeholders negotiate and
  prioritize the requirements for a software
  development project

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Who Are The Stakeholders?

• Customers
• Users
• Programmers
• Architects
• Domain Experts

• Analysts
• Marketing
• Sales
• Management
• ?

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WinWin Definition

• The win-win approach is a set of principles,
  practices, and tools, which enable a set of
  interdependent stakeholders to work out a
  mutually satisfactory (win-win) set of shared
  commitments.

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Win-lose Generally Becomes Lose-lose
Actually, nobody wins in these situations
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Key Concepts

• Win Condition objective which makes a
  stakeholder feel like a winner
• Issue conflict or constraint on a win condition
• Option A way of overcoming an issue
• Agreement mutual commitment to an option or win
  condition

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WinWin Negotiation Model
Win Condition
Issue
involves
covers
addresses
Agreement
Option
adopts
WinWin Equilibrium State - All Win Conditions
covered by Agreements - No outstanding Issues
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WinWin Critical Success Factors

• Appropriate staffing of stakeholder
  representatives, facilitator function
• Stakeholder representatives empowered,
  committed, representative, collaborative,
  knowledgeable
• Facilitators some understanding of stakeholder
  domains, collaboration management ability
• Good facilitators can be participants also
• Beginning of shared vision

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Spiral Model Refinements

• Where do objectives, constraints, alternatives
  come from?
• Win Win extensions
• Lack of intermediate milestones
• Anchor Points LCO, LCA, IOC
• Concurrent-engineering spirals between anchor
  points
• Need to avoid model clashes, provide more
  specific guidance
• MBASE

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Why Use WinWin ?

• The alternatives dont work
• Win-lose often leads to lose-lose
• Avoids costly rework
• 100X cost to fix requirements after delivery
• Builds trust and manages expectations
• Looking out for others needs builds trust
• Balancing needs leads to realistic expectations
• Helps stakeholders adapt to change
• Shared vision and the flexibility of quick
  re-negotiation
• Helps to build institutional memory
• Capture the why behind the what, the argument
  behind the artifact

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Four Generations of Tool Support

• 1G Initial Prototype
• developed in concert with Perceptronics CACE-PM
  support system for concurrent engineering of
  multi-chip modules
• 2G Strong-Vision, Not-so-strong Architecture
• Sun-UNIX client-server architecture, X/Motif GUI
  support, and its own database server
• 3G Muscle-Bound Architecture
• formally analyzed negotiation model, uniform
  artifact look and feel, carefully defined
  GUI-database interfaces, rigorous enforcement of
  the negotiation model, amenities for voting,
  attachments negotiation visualization and
  navigation
• 4G Group Support System Infrastructure
• EasyWinWin

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EasyWinWin objectives

• Foster stakeholder involvement
• Proven collaboration techniques
• Moderate and facilitate crucial activities
• No training requirements for participants
• Stakeholders interact frequently, intensively,
  anytime, anyplace they want
• Step-by-step process guide
• Automation
• Scalable, reliable, interoperable tool support
• GroupSystems automation suite

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Why Use EasyWinWin?

• Speed and efficiency for modest system,
  distributed stakeholders
• Email and telephone 1-3 months
• Early WinWin toolset 1-3 weeks
• EasyWinWin OnLine 2-5 days
• Low entry barrier for stakeholders
• Easy to learn and use
• Intuitive, time-efficient process

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EasyWinWin Process

• Review and expand negotiation topics
• Brainstorm stakeholder interests
• Converge on Win Conditions
• Capture a glossary of Terms
• Prioritize Win Conditions
• Identify Issues and Options
• Negotiate Agreements
• Organize negotiation results

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WinWin Deliverables

• An outline of negotiation topics (taxonomy)
• Definitions of key project terms
• Prioritized win conditions
• Issues constraints, conflicts, known problems
• Options solutions addressing issues
• Agreements providing the foundation for further
  plans

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EasyWinWin Usage

• Web-based information systems
• Digital library projects
• Web-portal development
• University bookstore consortium
• Web-infrastructure for e-Marketplace
• MediaConnex
• COTS product requirements definition
• Sales and marketing process definition

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Introduction of Example Project USC-CSE
Web-services for Affiliates
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Example Affiliates' Web-Site Interactions

• Search for information in technical reports
• Download a tech report or a tool
• - USC COCOMO II, UML Analyzer, CodeCount, etc.
• Review student resumes
• Find out about, register for future events
• Arrange visits to and from USC-CSE
• Check links to other SW Engineering resources
• Listen to vugraph presentations
• Submit an interest profile and be notified of new
  CSE items of interest

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Roles

• Project Manager
• Developer Analyst, designer, coder, tester,
• Regular AffiliateUser User of the Affiliates
  private area going for some information
• Regular AffiliateUninformed Uninformed a
  priori user of the Affiliates private area
• Affiliate--Point of Contact Receives
  announcements distributes information within
  Affiliate organization
• AffiliateSponsor Authorizes renewal usually
  Senior Management
• CSE Management Value of assets information to
  assist renewal decisions
• CSE Researcher Wants feedback
• COCOMO-only Afffiliate Only told about COCOMO II
  events.

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(1) Review and Expand Negotiation Topics

• Objective refine, and customize the outline of
  negotiation topics
• How Could-be, Should-be

• Result Shared Outline that helps to
• stimulate your thinking,
• organize your win conditions, and
• serves as a completeness checklist for
  negotiations.

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Ways to Win in Software Development
Stakeholders negotiate about

• Project requirements
• System capabilities
• Interface requirements
• Level of service requirements
• Evolution requirements

See USC-CSE MBASE Guidelines
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Win 1. Project Requirements

• Mandates for design team
• Global constraints, such as mandated technology,
  often non-negotiable
• Policy, procedure, methodology
• Tools, techniques
• Project requirements should be M.A.R.S.
  (Measurable, achievable, relevant, specific)

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Win 2. Capability Requirements

• Features, functions, behaviors
• Nominal primary purpose of the system
• Off-nominal for handling exceptions, variant
  scenarios
• Capability requirements are testable

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Win 3. Interface Requirements

• How should it look and feel to the user?
• How should it tie to other software and hardware
  systems?

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Win 4. Level of Service Requirements

• How well must the system perform a given
  requirement?
• Performance, Reliability, Portability,
• Level of Service Requirements should be M.A.R.S.
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Specific

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Win 5. Evolution Requirements

• Account for predictable future growth and change
• Capability Evolution
• Level of Service Evolution
• Interface Evolution

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The Topics for Negotiation

• This is an outline of all the ways you can win in
  a software development project.
• Read it and suggest additions, revisions

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(2) Brainstorm Stakeholder Interests

• Objective Share perspectives, views, background,
  expectations
• How Anonymous, rapid brainstorming

• Result An unstructured set of comments about
  their vested interests (win conditions)

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People submit and share ideas about their win
conditions using electronic discussion sheets
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Brainstorming Instructions

• Each of you will start on a different electronic
  page.
• You type in one win condition. Then you must
  submit the page back to the group.
• The system will randomly bring you back a new
  page, which may have other win conditions from
  the team.

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Brainstorming Instructions

• You may respond to the ideas of others in one of
  three ways
• You may argue with an idea
• You may expand on it by adding detail
• You may be inspired to a completely idea.

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(3) Converge on Win Conditions

• Objective Build and organize win conditions
• How Structured discussion to converge on key win
  conditions
• Result List of clearly stated, unambiguous win
  conditions

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Team builds a clean list of win conditions and
organizes win conditions into pre-defined buckets
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(4) Capture a Glossary of Terms

• Objective Define and share meaning of important
  terms
• How Initial definitions based on stakeholder
  statements joint review

• Result A glossary of terms with definitions and
  stakeholder statements showing usage of terms

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The team crafts definitions for important terms
used in the project
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(5) Prioritize win conditions

• Objective Scope project, gain focus
• How Vote on Business Importance Ease of
  Realization
• Result Prioritized win conditions

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Low Hanging Fruits
Maybe later
Forget them
Important with hurdles
After voting,win conditions are displayed in
four categories
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Prioritization Instructions

• Rate each win conditions on a scale from 1 to 10
  for each of two criteria
• Business importancerelevance of a win condition
  to project/company success
• Ease of realization perceived technical or
  economic constraints of implementing a win
  condition.
• Vote what you know. Dont vote what you dont
  know

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(6) Reveal conflicts and constraints

• Objective Surface and understand issues
• How Analyze prioritization poll to reveal
  conflicts, constraints, different perceptions
• Result Issues, sometimes Options

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Red cells indicate lack of consensus. Oral
discussion of cell graph reveals unshared
information, unnoticed assumptions, hidden
issues, constraints, etc.
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Red-Light-Green-Light

• Without telling me how you voted
• What reasons might exist for rating this item
  high and what reasons might exist for rating it
  low?

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(7) Issues, Options, Agreements

• Objective Explore issues and options negotiate
  agreements
• How Develop/Review passfor issues, options,
  agreements
• Result A WinWin Tree
• Win conditions
• Issues
• options,
• agreements

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Issues are captured as subheadings to win
conditions
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Elaborate Options
Options are captured as subheadings to issues
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Agreements are captured as subheadings to options
and win conditions
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WinWin Tree Instructions

• We will identify the issues that arise due to
  constraints, conflicting win conditions, etc.
• We will propose Options to resolve these issues.
• We will finally negotiate agreements for all
  issues in the WinWin tree.

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(8) Organize Negotiation Results

• Objective Check if negotiation topics have been
  sufficiently covered
• How Joint Sortingand Reviewing
• Result List of topics needing further attention

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Instructions

• This is the last step of the Easy WinWin
  negotiation here you will sort the WinWin
  elements (Win Conditions, Issues, Options,
  Agreements) to the negotiation topics.
• Remember that all of you will be doing this
  simultaneously.
• We will then review the buckets and check if all
  negotiation topics have been sufficiently
  covered.

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Discussion

• EasyWinWin and other requirements elicitation
  approaches
• Role of the facilitator
• Distributed meetings

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EasyWinWin Summary

• Speed
• Parallel contribution reduces cycle time
• Minimum training requirements
• Broader and deeper negotiation results
• Increases buy-in and reduces risks
• Builds trust and manages expectations
• Repeatable process
• Collaboration techniques
• Process guide for moderator
• Methodology available online

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EasyWinWin Web Resources

• http//www.sea.uni-linz.ac.at/Research/Projects/ew
  w/
• http//sunset.usc.edu/research/WINWIN/EasyWinWin
• http//www.groupsystems.com