Investigating Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering for Business Processes

Abstract

Business processes are designed to execute strategies that aim at achieving organisational goals. During the last decade, several methods have been proposed that prescribe the use of goal-oriented requirements engineering techniques for supporting different business process management activities, in particular business process modelling. The integration of goal modelling and business process modelling aims at increasing the alignment between business strategies and the processes with their supporting IT systems. This new research area, which the authors call Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering for Business Processes (GORE-for-BP), is developing rapidly, but without a clear conceptualization of the focus and scope of the proposed GORE-for-BP methods. Furthermore, an overview is lacking of which methods exist and what their level of maturity is. This paper therefore presents a research review of the GORE-for-BP area, with the aim of identifying relevant methods and assessing their focus, scope, and maturity. This study used Systematic Literature Review and Method Meta-Modelling as research methods to identify and evaluate the state of the GORE-for-BP research area and to propose a research agenda for directing future research in the area. Nineteen methods were identified, which is an indication of an active research area. Although some similarities were found with respect to how goal models are transformed into business process models (or vice-versa), there is also considerable divergence in modelling languages used and the extent of coverage of typical requirements engineering and business process management lifecycle phases. Furthermore, the exploitation of requirements engineering techniques in the full business process management lifecycle is currently under researched. Also, the maturity of the methods found in terms of the formalisation of the transformation activity, the elaboration of method guidelines, and the extent to which methods are validated, can be further improved.

Goal-oriented requirements engineering: an extended systematic mapping study

“…Poels et al provide a SLR focusing on GORE for supporting business process modeling and management activities (GORE-for-BP), providing an overview of 19 available methods, and evaluating method maturity [36]. The authors make meta-models of the methods in order to understand and summarize existing approaches.…”

Narrativization in Information Systems Development

“…Thus, system developers cannot fully absorb what users convey. Quite often, the context is simplified or distorted, resulting in unsatisfactory results (Holmström & Sawyer, 2011;Oran et al, 2021;Poels et al, 2013;Saghafi & Wand, 2020;Urquhart, 2001). We argue that limited understanding of the role and influence of narratives are contributing factors in this situation.…”

“…To achieve this, requirements engineering, that is, "the process of discovering that purpose, by identifying stakeholders and their needs, and documenting these in a form that is amenable to analysis, communication, and subsequent implementation" (Nuseibeh & Easterbrook, 2000, p. 37), is conducted. This includes numerous activities and techniques to obtain an understanding of the system's requirements (Poels et al, 2013;Pressman, 2010, p. 119).…”

Architecting business process maps

“…Process architecture is also essential for process portfolio management [5] and improvement initiatives that concern multiple processes like process standardisation efforts and the identification of shared services [6]. Research in Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) has resulted in a few methods for (re)designing business process architecture in alignment with business goals [7][8][9], though most GORE research on business processes relates to goal alignment or goal-driven design of individual business processes rather than entire process architectures [10]. In Enterprise Architecture (EA), the business process architecture is considered an integral component of the business layer of an organisation's enterprise architecture, where processes are managed as assets that are vital to the organisation's operations [11,12].…”