Telecooperation Experience with the WinWin System

WinWin is a telecooperation system supporting the definition of software-based applications as negotiated stakeholder win conditions. Our experience in using WinWin in defining over 30 digital library applications, including several telecooperation systems, is that it is important to supplement negotiation support systems such as WinWin with such capabilities as prototyping, tradeoff analysis tools, email, and videoconferencing. We also found that WinWin’s social orientation around considering other stakeholders’ win conditions has enabled stakeholders to achieve high levels of shared vision and mutual trust. Our subsequent experience in implementing the specified digital library systems in a rapidly changing web-based milieu indicated that achieving these social conditions among system stakeholders was more important than achieving precise requirements specifications, due to the need for team adaptability to requirements change. Finally, we found that the WinWin approach provides an effective set of methods of integrating ethical considerations into practical system definition processes via Rawls’ stakeholder negotiation-based Theory of Justice.