On the Identification of Goals in Stakeholders' Dialogs

Contradictions in requirements are inevitable in early project stages. To resolve these contradictions, it is necessary to know the rationales (goals) that lead to the particular requirements. In early project stages one stakeholder rarely knows the goals of the others. Sometimes the stakeholders cannot explicitly state even their own goals. Thus, the goals have to be elaborated in the process of requirements elicitation and negotiation. This paper shows how the goals can be guessed by systematic analysis of stakeholders dialogs. The guessed goals have to be presented to the stakeholders for validation. Then, when the goals are explicitly stated and validated, it becomes easier to resolve requirements contradictions.