An approach for evaluating collaborative software environments based on integration of house of quality with multi-attribute utility theory

Quantitative ranking between alternatives and the selection of the most promising one is highly challenging. Typically, multiple criteria need to be granted and weighed based on task and user requirements. It is getting more complicated with increasing numbers of requirements and stakeholders now common in feature-rich control systems. Hence, there is a need for a systematic method of dealing with Multi-Criteria-Decision-Making (MCDM) problems. In this paper, we develop a systematic approach by integrating the House-of-Quality (HoQ) method with Multi-Attribute-Utility-Theory (MAUT). It is shown that combining HoQ and MAUT allows the integration of different task and user requirements. This method is used to perform criteria comparisons, which results neither in an overestimation nor an underestimation of the criterion's influence and consequently provides more accurate and predictable results. The methods are applied to the evaluation of three different collaborative software environments in order to determine their suitability for a typical collaboration task.