Process implications of social networking-based requirements negotiation tools

Avoiding a major source of system and software project failures by finding more non-technical-user friendly methods of system definition and evolution has been a significant challenge. Five generations of the WinWin negotiation framework have improved such capabilities, but even the latest WikiWinWin toolset has encountered problems with non-technical stakeholder usage. With the advent of social networking and popularity of Facebook and Gmail, we have developed a radically different way for collaborative requirements management and negotiations. The new avatar of the WinWin framework called `Winbook' is based on the social networking paradigm, similar to Facebook and content organization using color coded labels, similar to Gmail. Initial usage results on 14 small projects involving non-technical stakeholders have shown profound implications on the way requirements are negotiated and used through the system and software definition and development processes. Winbook has also been adopted as part of a project to bridge requirements and architecting for a major US government organization.