Conflicts and synergies among quality requirements

Abstract

Analyses of the interactions among quality requirements (QRs) have often found that optimizing on one QR will cause serious problems with other QRs. As just one relevant example, one large project had an Integrated Product Team optimize the system for Security. In doing so, it reduced its vulnerability profile by having a single-agent key distribution system and a single copy of the data base – only to have the Reliability engineers point on that these were system-critical single points of failure. The project’s Security-optimized architecture also created conflicts with the system’s Performance, Usability, and Modifiability. Of course, optimizing the system for Security had synergies with Reliability in having high levels of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability. This panel aims at fostering discussion on these relationships among QRs and how the use of data repositories may help discovering them.