A Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering Method for Business Processes

Abstract. The field of requirements engineering (RE) for business processes has grown during the last several years. As business processes are needed to fulfil organizational goals, the information captured in goal models provides a basis for designing business processes. Although research has started to explore how to transform goal models into business process models, current transformation methods need further research. This paper proposes a toolsupported method to model goals as part of the business requirements for business processes and to automatically generate business process design skeletons that respond to these business requirements

Requirements Elicitation from BPMN Models

Tarkvarasüsteemi loomiseks on väga oluline mõista, millised on tegelikud vajadused ja nende rahuldamist takistavad piirangud. Nõuete tuvastamise käigus õpitakse tundma ümbritsevat keskkonda ja tehakse kindlaks kasutajate ning teiste osapoolte vajadused. Üheks peamiseks kohaks, kust nõudeid leida, on hetkel kasutatavad süsteemid (protsessid, organisatsioon, keskkond ja kasutatavad infosüsteemid). Kasutusel olevaid protsesse kujutatakse tihti graafiliselt mudelitena ja need mudelid kujutavad endast väga olulist informatsiooniallikat nõuete tuvastamisel. BPMN mudelid on saanud väga populaarseks ja neid kasutatakse tihti süsteemide kirjeldamiseks, kuid vaatamata sellele, et nad on väärtuslikud teadmiste allikad, kasutatakse neid nõuete tuvastamisel siiski harva. Üheks selliseks põhjuseks on asjaolu, et puuduvad konkreetsed ja põhjalikud juhised, mis aitavad süstemaatiliselt mudelist nõudeid tuvastada. Selles töös esitletakse meetodit funktsionaalsete nõuete tuvastamiseks BPMN mudelitest. Meetod läbib süsteemselt kõiki nõude komponente ja annab juhised, kuidas BPMN mudelist komponendi kohta informatsiooni leida ning annab lisaks kogumi küsimusi, mida valdkonna spetsialistidele esitada, et nõue oleks põhjalik, järjepidev, piiritletud ja nõutava detailsusega. Loodud meetodit rakendati ka juhtumiuuringu käigus ja tõestati, et uus meetod on rakendatav ning on struktureeritud lähenemine nõuete tuvastamiseks. Meetod tuvastas rohkem nõudeid kui meetod, mis oli algselt kasutusel juhtumi organisatsiooni poolt ja tuvastatud nõuded olid ka parema kvaliteediga. Meetodi rakendamine võttis märkimisväärselt vähem aega, tuvastamise protsess oli hästi kontrollitav, see võimaldas täpsemalt hinnata tuvastamisele kuluvat aega ja seeläbi on meetodit kasutades lihtsam protsessi planeerida ja ülesandeid delegeerida.When building a software system, it is crucial to understand the actual needs and the interfering constraints that apply in the surrounding environment. Elicitation of requirements is all about learning the environment and discovering the needs of users and other stakeholders. One of the primary sources for requirement elicitation is the system (processes, organization, environment and legacy systems) currently being used. The system is often captured in the form of graphical models, which are an important source of information for requirements elicitation. BPMN models are gaining popularity and are frequently used to model systems. Despite the fact that they are a valuable source of knowledge, they are rarely used as a source for eliciting requirements. One reason for this is the lack of concrete and comprehensive guidelines that would assist a systematic requirements elicitation from such models. This thesis presents a method for eliciting functional requirements from BPMN models. The method covers all components of a requirement and gives guidelines where in the BPMN model the information about the components can be found. It also provides a set of questions to be asked from domain experts to make sure that the requirement specification is complete, consistent, bounded and on the required level of granularity. The method was applied on a case study and it was proved that the method is applicable and provides a structured approach to eliciting requirements. The method elicited more requirements than the method previously used by the case organization, and the elicited requirements were also of better quality. The method took considerably less time to apply, it gave better control over the elicitation process, it was easier to evaluate the needed effort, and it enabled to better plan the process. The structured approach makes it easier to delegate work, and there are less situations where something might be overlooked

The GOALS approach: business and software modeling traceability by means of human-computer interaction: enterprise modeling language and method

The management of an enterprise relies on the continuous organization and development of its business and software systems. A process that requires merging the ideas of the enterprise’ systems managers, targeting the specification of business requirements and the conception and implementation of a supporting information system. This process finds obstacles in the identification and communication of requirements, and also in their transformation in software artefacts, leading to difficulties or loss of traceability between business and software models. Existing methods, languages and techniques are still not sufficiently standardized to ensure that when a business improvement is introduced, the supportive software solution will be implemented within budget and time. Methods are still too closed to the concepts of their original scientific domains, conceiving solutions which are not representative of the business and software conceptual relation and of the complexity concealed in an improvement effort, namely concerning usability and user experience. Moreover, the lack of a common modeling language and method for the conception of holistic and traceable software solutions, also refrains the performance of the enterprise development process. The GOALS Approach presents a solution to surpass these barriers by means of the specification of an enterprise modeling language that relates the business and software conceptual structures using a shared set of concepts, a notation, process, method and techniques, that allow the design of the software as a result of the business organization, ensuring traceability by means of the permanent representation of the business structure in the software structure

On the symbiosis between conceptual modeling and ontology engineering : recommendation-based conceptual modeling

Within an enterprise, different conceptual models, such as process, data, and goal models, are created by various stakeholders. These models are fundamentally based on similar underlying enterprise (domain) concepts, but they have a different focus, are represented using different modeling languages, take different viewpoints, utilize different terminology, and are used to develop different enterprise artefacts (such as documents, software, databases, etc.); therefore, they typically lack consistency and alignment. Another issue is that modelers have different vocabulary selections and different modeling styles. As a result, the enterprise can find itself accumulating a pile of models which cover similar aspects in different manners. Those models are not machine-readable and cannot be processed automatically. Enterprise-Specific Ontologies (ESOs) aim to solve this problem by serving as a reference during the conceptual model creation. Using such a shared semantic repository makes conceptual models semantically aligned and facilitates model integration. However, managing those ontologies is complicated; an enterprise is an evolving entity, and as it changes, the ESO might become outdated. During the years of research dedicated to this dissertation, the Recommendation-Based Conceptual Modeling and Ontology Evolution (CMOE+) framework was developed. This framework establishes a symbiotic relationship between the Ontology engineering and the Conceptual modeling fields. CMOE+ consists of two cycles: the Ontology Evolution cycle and the Conceptual Modeling cycle. The Ontology Evolution cycle is responsible for setting up the initial version of the ESO and updating it as the knowledge within the enterprise evolves. Additionally, this cycle encapsulates recommendation services to perform ontology look-up and to present the most relevant ESO concepts in support of the modeler. The Conceptual Modeling cycle is responsible for the creation of conceptual models in different modeling languages based on the ESO. This cycle is also concerned with the quality evaluation of the created models. CMOE+ was developed based on requirements identified as a result of a literature review and a case study. The development process follows the Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM). After the initial version of CMOE+ was put forward, our focus was narrowed towards the recommendation-based conceptual modeling part of CMOE+, and we continued to gradually improve the framework in iterations until it reached its current state. The Ontology Evolution Cycle is not fully addressed within the scope of this dissertation. In order to demonstrate the performance and usability of CMOE+, it was exemplified for process modeling using BPMN and goal modeling using i*. This thesis presents a detailed instantiation, and explains steps to be performed in order to instantiate CMOE+ for other modeling languages. In order to evaluate the process modeling instance of CMOE+, a CMOE+BPMN tool was implemented. This tool incorporates a BPMN modeler, facilitates storage and access of the ESO, and includes all algorithms functioning within CMOE+ for the BPMN modeling language (as some of the algorithms are language dependent). Next, CMOE+ was exemplified using the i* goal modeling language. Finally, we demonstrated the ability of CMOE+ to perform alignment between i* and BPMN models, in order to show that CMOE+ is indeed beneficial in achieving interoperability among models created in different modeling languages and covering distinct aspects of the enterprise

A semantic based framework for software regulatory compliance

Software development market is currently witnessing an increasing demand for software applications conformance with the international regime of GRC for Governance, Risk and Compliance. In this thesis, we propose a compliance requirement analysis method for early stages of software development based on a semantically-rich model, where a mapping can be established from legal and regulatory requirements relevant to system context to software system goals and contexts. This research is an attempt to address the requirement of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, Article 25) (European Commission) for implementation of a "privacy by design” approach as part of organizational IT-systems and processes. It requires design of data protection requirements in the development of business processes for products and services. The proposed semantic model consists of a number of ontologies each corresponding to a knowledge component within the developed framework of our approach. Each ontology is a thesaurus of concepts in the compliance and risk assessment domain related to system development along with relationships and rules between concepts that compromise the domain knowledge. The main contribution of the work presented in this paper is a novel ontology-based framework that demonstrates how description-logic reasoning techniques can be used to simulate legal reasoning requirements employed by legal professions against the description of each ontology. The semantic modelling of each component of framework can highly influence the compliance of developing software system and enables the reusability, adaptability and maintainability of these components. Through the discrete modelling of these components, the flexibility and extensibility of compliance systems will be improved. Additionally, enriching ontologies with semantic rules increases the reasoning power and helps to represent rules of laws, regulations and guidelines for compliance, also mapping, refinement and inheriting of different components from each other. This novel approach offers a pedagogically effective and satisfactory learning experience for developers and compliance officers to be trained in area of compliance and query for knowledge in this domain. This thesis offers the theoretical models, design and implementation of a compliance system in accordance with this approach