Value-Driven Analysis and Design (VDAD)

VDAD Process | Practices | Why VDAD? (User Stories) | Tools | Background | Glossary

VDAD Step 3: Identify Values per Stakeholder

TL;DR: Elicit the individual values of the identified stakeholders. Consolidate this information to create and populate a value register progressively.

Goal and Approach

After having identified the stakeholders in Step 2, the goal of this step is to identify the values that are important to the stakeholders and stakeholder groups.

This should ideally be done in direct communication with the affected people. In case this is not possible, it requires an empathic “putting yourself in the perspective of the people affected” approach.

Apply the Value Impact Mapping practice suggested in this repository to identify all stakeholder’s values that might be affected by the system or feature. The impact on such values might be positive, neutral, or negative.

You might wan to create value models, for instance with a tool such as Context Mapper. Context Mapper supports the modelling of stakeholders and their values. Value models express important values are to stakeholders and what the impact of a system or feature to those stakeholders and their values is.

As an alternative to value models and/or Value Impact Maps, create a full-fledged value register1 as specified in IEEE 7000 standard2. Such a value register contains all important values of the stakeholders and how the system or feature positively or negatively impacts these values as well. ESE practices3 such as Story Valuation and the value notations suggested in ESE can further support the creation of the value register; Context Mapper supports the modelling of value registers and the terminology of the IEEE 7000 standard2 as well.

Inputs

The identified stakeholders of Step 2, especially the outcome of applying the Stakeholder Mapping practice, are the input to this step.

Outputs

This step of the VDAD process shall produce the necessary knowledge about the stakeholders values. This knowledge can be documented in various forms:

Besides the gained knowledge about the values of the stakeholders, this VDAD step should reveal potential conflicts.

Supporting Tools

The Context Mapper tool supports the modelling of stakeholders and values with its CML language. You can then automatically generate a Value Impact Map (VIM) (more details on the Value Impact Mapping practice page).

Alternatively, you can use other textual or visual tools. ESE provides alternative notations for maintaining value registers.3

Process Navigation

  1. “An information store created for transparency and traceability reasons, which contains data and decisions gained in ethical values elicitation and prioritization and traceability into ethical value requirements.”  2

  2. IEEE Standard Model Process for Addressing Ethical Concerns during System Design, 2021, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9536679  2 3

  3. https://github.com/ethical-se/ese-practices  2 3