An Argument-based Approach to Manage Collabo- rative Negotiations in Software Systems Design

To manage collaborative negotiation in software system design, we have built a socio-technical argument-based negotiation management approach by integrating a Socio-technical Co-construction Process (STCP) with an Argument-based Negotiation Process (ABNP). This paper reviews relevant research work and presents each step of this approach. The STCP provides rich contextual information of technical decisions and social interactions in a system design process. The ABNP provides STCP with a negotiation management and conflict resolution strategy by guiding software engineers to generate, exchange and evaluate their argument claims in negotiation activities. In addition, this paper describes a prototype system which implements this new approach using the advanced Web-based software technologies with the goal of demonstrating how to systematically enhance the negotiation management capabilities in a dynamic socio-technical framework.