Software tradeoff assistant: An integrated framework for analytical decision making and tradeoffs in software development

In current software practices, tradeoffs are typically performed in isolation using specific techniques at various stages of software development. Software practitioners lack the ability to share common knowledge about software development factors, select different tradeoff mechanisms, and integrate results from various stages. Furthermore, most existing tradeoff techniques in software engineering do not explicitly resolve conflicts from multiple stakeholders. This paper presents Software Tradeoff Assistant (STA), an integrated framework that provides decision aids for enhancing understanding and resolving complex tradeoffs at various stages of software development. By integrating various analytical decision making techniques and ontology of software characteristics into tradeoff analysis, STA provides a structured process for reasoning about tradeoffs systematically. STA also includes a tradeoff methodology that facilitates a sound quantitative evaluation of alternatives along with integration of preferences from multiple stakeholders. We describe a preliminary design of STA with an illustrated case study.