Software Engineering

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1.11 
Trade-off analysis
must be evaluated in terms of their relative merits to product performance, acceptabil-
ity, and success within the marketplace. Ultimately, the implementation of an architec-
tural solution must be quantified in cost-benefit terms if the solution affects the scope 
of the project. Software engineering involves situations where the technical or design 
challenge is within the established scope of the project. The aim is to make the best 
architectural decisions despite uncertainty and unpredictable outcomes. 
Figure 1.5
 pro-
vides an illustration relating the use of trade-off and cost-benefit analysis within the 
technical and project domains of a development project.
Because trade-off analysis deals with uncertainty and sometimes unquantifiable 
outcomes, innovative approaches have been developed to facilitate the evaluation of 
merits of design alternatives. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a popular tech-
nique that has been used widely within the automotive and electronics industries 
worldwide. QFD utilizes a matrix to arrange and correlate what the customer wants 
(voice of the customer) against how a product can be designed to meet customer 
wants. QFD, when used appropriately, may increase the cross-functional integra-
tion within organizations, especially between marketing, engineering, and software 
FIGURE 1.5
Project and technical decision-making domains.

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