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C2O configurator: a tool for guided decision-making

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Abstract

Decision models are widely used in software engineering to describe and restrict decision-making (e.g., deriving a product from a product-line). Since decisions are typically interdependent, it is often neither obvious which decisions have the most significant impact nor which decisions might ultimately conflict. Unfortunately, the current state-of-the-art provides little support for dealing with such situations. On the one hand, some conflicts can be avoided by providing more freedom in which order decisions are made (i.e., most important decisions first). On the other hand, conflicts are unavoidable at times, and living with conflicts may be preferable over forcing the user to fix them right away—particularly because fixing conflicts becomes easier as more is known about a user’s intentions. This paper introduces the C2O (Configurator 2.0) tool for guided decision-making. The tool allows the user to answer questions in an arbitrary order—with and without the presence of inconsistencies. While giving users those freedoms, it still supports and guides them by (i) rearranging the order of questions according to their potential to minimize user input, (ii) providing guidance to avoid follow-on conflicts, and (iii) supporting users in fixing conflicts at a later time.

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Notes

  1. www.sea.jku.at/tools/c2o.

  2. http://www.splot-research.org/.

  3. http://www.splot-research.org/.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Thomas Schartmüller for his work on the GUI. The work was kindly supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P23115-N23 and the Austrian Center of Competence in Mechatronics (ACCM), a K2-Center of the COMET/K2 program, which is aided by funds of the Austrian Republic and the Provincial Government of Upper Austria. The authors thank all involved partners for their support.

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  1. Institute for Systems Engineering and Automation, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria

    Alexander Nöhrer & Alexander Egyed

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  1. Alexander Nöhrer
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  2. Alexander Egyed
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Correspondence to Alexander Egyed.

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Nöhrer, A., Egyed, A. C2O configurator: a tool for guided decision-making. Autom Softw Eng 20, 265–296 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-012-0117-4

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