Influence of stakeholder communication on consensus making in requirements negotiation

Consensus building is essential in aligning multiple stakeholder viewpoints which are commonly emerging during the process of requirements elicitation, analysis and validation [15]. In fact, agreement among diverse groups of stakeholders is deemed prerequisite to establishing project cooperation and collaboration. While individuals frequently rank the importance of their personal goals over the goals of an organisation, having an appropriate strategy for finding common ground among individuals is crucial to any project's success. This paper therefore explores factors that influence the consensus making process and develops a model that helps with understanding the role of consensus specifically during the elicitation phase of the Requirements Engineering process.<br />