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Authors: Alexander Egyed and Barry
Boehm
In a period of two years, two rather
independent experiments were conducted at the University of Southern
California (USC). In 1995, 23 three-person teams negotiated the
requirements for a hypothetical library system. Then, in 1996, 14
six-person teams negotiated the requirements for real-world digital
library systems.
A number of hypotheses were created to test
how more realistic software projects differ from hypothetical ones.
Other hypotheses address differences in uniformity and repeatability
of negotiation processes and results. The results indicate that
repeatability in 1996 was even harder to achieve then in 1995.
Nevertheless, this paper presents some surprising commonalties
between both years that indicate some areas of uniformity.
As such we found that the more realistic
projects required more time to resolve conflicts and to identify
options (alternatives) than the hypothetical ones. Further, the 1996
projects created more artifacts although they exhibited less
artifact interconnectivity, implying a more divide and conquer
negotiation approach. In terms of commonalties, we found that people
factors such as experience did have effects onto negotiation
patterns (especially in 1996), that users and customers were most
significant (in terms of artifact creation) during the goal
identification whereas the developers were more significant in
identifying issues (conflicts) and options. We also found that both
years exhibited some strange although similar disproportional
stakeholder participation. |