Resolving Conflicts

Resolving Conflicts

Once wishes are collected from all departments, SpecGraph's AI compares them against each other and the PRD to find conflicts — places where two or more departments want things that can't both be true at the same time, or that require a trade-off the team needs to consciously make.

Why Conflict Detection Matters

In a traditional requirements process, conflicts between departments often go undetected until development is underway — or worse, until after launch. SpecGraph surfaces these conflicts explicitly, before a single line of code is written, so the team can make conscious, documented decisions.

Running Conflict Detection

From the Surveys page (or from the project's phase action button), click Detect Conflicts. The AI:

1. Reads all submitted wishes across every department.
2. Compares them against each other for contradictions, incompatibilities, and competing priorities.
3. Generates a conflict report with each issue described in plain language.

Conflict detection runs in the background. You'll be notified when it's complete and the project advances to the Resolving phase.

Understanding a Conflict

Each conflict card on the Conflicts page shows:

Conflicting Wishes The two (or more) wishes that are in tension, shown side by side with their department, type, priority, and description.

Conflict Description An AI-written explanation of why these wishes conflict. For example: "Engineering's wish for a lightweight SQLite-based storage layer conflicts directly with the Security team's requirement for AES-256 encryption at rest with key management, which SQLite does not support natively."

Severity

• Critical — fundamentally incompatible; must be resolved before unification.
• High — significant impact; should be resolved.
• Medium — notable tension; resolution recommended.
• Low — minor friction; can be noted and deferred.

All Critical and High severity conflicts must be resolved before the project can advance to unification.

Impact Analysis An AI-generated breakdown of which PRD sections would be affected, and by how much, depending on which wish is prioritized. This helps the team understand the downstream consequences of each resolution path.

Resolution Options A list of AI-suggested resolution paths, each with a brief explanation of the trade-offs involved. Examples:

• "Prioritize Engineering's wish and document the security limitation as a known constraint."
• "Prioritize Security's wish and assign additional effort to find a compatible encrypted storage solution."
• "Scope a phased approach: use SQLite for MVP, migrate to an enterprise solution in v2."

Resolving a Conflict

To resolve a conflict, your team works through the following steps:

1. Discuss the Conflict

Click on any conflict to open the detail view. You'll see the side-by-side wish comparison, the impact analysis, and a discussion thread where anyone with project access can post comments.

Use this thread to bring in context that the AI might not have had — business constraints, timeline pressures, regulatory requirements, or technical details that affect the decision.

2. Vote on a Resolution

Once discussion has settled on a direction, team members vote on their preferred resolution option. Votes are visible to everyone.

3. Mark as Resolved

When consensus is reached (or the project lead makes the final call), click Mark as Resolved and select the chosen resolution option. The resolution is recorded and attributed to the user who finalized it.

Resolved conflicts are archived but remain visible in the project history — you can always review what was decided and why.

Conflict Summary

The top of the Conflicts page shows a summary:

• Total conflicts detected.
• Breakdown by severity.
• Number resolved vs. pending.

This gives you a quick sense of progress and whether any blockers remain before unification.

What Counts as Resolved

A conflict is resolved when a team member marks it resolved with a selected resolution path. The project does not require unanimous agreement — one person (typically the project lead) makes the final call after discussion.

After All Conflicts Are Resolved

Once all Critical and High conflicts are resolved, the phase action button activates to let you proceed to Unification. See Unification for what happens next.