Shaping Decentralized Collaboration in DAOs with a Requirements Engineering Framework

Distributed Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) introduce novel governance and collaboration challenges by decentralizing decision-making and automating organizational processes via blockchain smart contracts. However, conventional Requirements Engineering (RE) methods, typically designed for centralized contexts, struggle to address the unique complexities of multi-party, trustless environments. This paper presents a Requirements Engineering Framework tailored to DAO-based multi-stakeholder systems in the Web3 domain. The framework integrates Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) with Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) to systematically capture stakeholder objectives, map these goals to decentralized governance workflows, and derive technical requirements across the blockchain stack. I introduce two key methodological adaptations specifically tailored to DAO environments: (1) consensus-driven governance modeling, which applies existing GORE concepts to token-weighted voting and evolving stakeholder alliances; and (2) stakeholder alignment under shifting membership, building on adaptive RE practices to reflect evolving member roles and token distributions. By offering an iterative structure that supports decentralized decision-making, our framework extends established RE approaches into Web3 contexts, addressing a recognized gap in systematically adapting GORE and BPMN to blockchain-based governance.By providing an iterative structure that accommodates decentralized decision-making, this framework advances socio-technical negotiation theories in Web3 contexts, filling a critical gap in the design and development of robust DAO systems.