Step 5: Conflicts & Tradeoffs
No project can have everything. Capturing conflict descriptions, requirements involved, impact analysis, trade-off proposals, and resolution status surfaces contradictory goals early. This module is for making conscious, deliberate decisions about tradeoffs, allowing stakeholders to agree on a realistic plan rather than discovering misalignments during implementation.
Documenting Tradeoffs
This is where you balance competing desires. Unspoken tradeoffs are a primary source of project conflict and failure. The AI Assistant is particularly good at spotting these conflicts in your requirements because it can analyze the entire scope at once.
Conflict Description & Severity
Provide a summary of the conflict and its severity (Low/Medium/High). This is where you state the competing requirements clearly. For example: "The business wants to launch a feature-rich product in two months (high priority), but the engineering team says a high-quality implementation of all features will take six months (high effort)."
Example: "High speed vs. low cost"
- Detailed questions for this section will be available soon.
Requirements Involved
List the specific requirement IDs or titles that are in conflict. This creates a clear link back to the detailed requirements and helps everyone understand the source of the issue without ambiguity.
Example: "REQ-PERF-01 (sub-second response) vs. REQ-BUDGET-01 ($5k server budget)"
- Detailed questions for this section will be available soon.
Impact Analysis
Describe the high-level effect of this conflict. What is at stake? This section clarifies the consequences of each choice, forcing a realistic discussion. For example: "If we rush, we risk launching a buggy product that damages our brand. If we delay, we risk missing a key market window."
Example: "Meeting performance requires expensive servers, exceeding budget. Sticking to budget leads to slow performance."
- Detailed questions for this section will be available soon.
Proposed Trade-off
This is the most important field. Document the chosen compromise or decision that balances the competing needs. It should be a conscious choice, not an accident. For example: "We will prioritize an MVP with the three most critical features for a launch in three months, and defer the other features to a phase 2 release."
Example: "We will aim for a 2-second response time which is achievable on mid-tier servers within budget."
- Detailed questions for this section will be available soon.
Resolution Status
Track whether the conflict is still 'Unresolved' or has been 'Resolved'. This helps in managing open issues and ensuring decisions are made in a timely manner before they can derail a sprint.
- Detailed questions for this section will be available soon.
Affected Stakeholders
List the key stakeholders who are impacted by the decision. This ensures that the right people have been consulted and are aware of the outcome, preventing future "I didn't agree to that" conversations down the line.
Example: "CEO, Head of Engineering"
- Detailed questions for this section will be available soon.
Key Artifacts
This module produces documents that are essential for transparent decision-making and stakeholder alignment.
- Conflict Log: A running list of all identified conflicts, their severity, and their current resolution status. This ensures that no issue is forgotten.
- Tradeoff Matrix: A document that summarizes the options considered for a major conflict, listing the pros and cons of each. This provides a clear rationale for the final decision.