Conflicting Requirements: The First Ones Turn You Down and The Remaining Ones Kill You Softly

Resolving conflicting objectives that need to be simultaneously fulfilled forms the basis of successful engineering [1]. In several cases, those objectives significantly reduce the solution space to a point where finding a valid solution is extremely difficult or may even be impossible [2]. Therefore, when such latent problems or conflicting requirements are not uncovered early enough, the risk of cost overruns, schedule delays, or system failure in general increases [3-8]. In fact, "if such conflicts are not apparent, then they will eventually emerge" [2] and the later they emerge, the higher the cost of dealing with them [9]. Consequently, early effective identification of conflicting requirements is incontestably critical to facilitate system success. This presentation contends that understanding how conflicting requirements affect the solution space is crucial to (1) develop effective conflicting requirements identification methods and (2) support engineering managers in justifying effort allocation to the early identification of conflicting requirements.