Organizations are increasingly looking to adopt and incorporate cognitive capabilities into key business processes to aid human decision-making activities. The availability of context data helps with improved decision-making involving both human users and cognitive systems, while ensuring continuing satisfaction of enterprise objectives. Therefore, the ongoing monitoring, selection and management of context data for redesigning sections of the overall business process structure, particularly where the cognitive systems are integrated in business processes, is of great interest. This paper proposes a systematic model-based approach to visualize the detection of context changes in a business process, determine an appropriate response to this context change, and identify the corresponding reconfiguration of processes in another part of the enterprise. This paper not only handles context, but also looks at the processes that need to respond to changes in that context. Together these processes constitute a business process architecture. This enables business process reconfiguration to better integrate cognitive systems in process activities requiring decision-making. The use of such modeling techniques facilitates the investigation of multiple process configurations while considering satisfaction of functional and non-functional objectives and ongoing contextual changes.

Organizations rely on a multiplicity of processes covering everything from their day-to-day functioning to longer term viability. Together, these processes and their interrelationships constitute the business process architecture (BPA) of the organization. While efforts have been dedicated to the analysis and design of business processes, the question of how processes in an organization should best relate to each other (i.e., the design of the BPA) has received relatively little consideration. Supported by technological and business innovations, the torrent of changes faced by today's organizations, forces them to stop looking at their processes individually and focus on designing BPAs, especially concentrating on balancing flexibility/agility and other objectives, such as cost and efficiency. In this paper, we propose a framework for BPA design with several dimensions along which activities or decisions could potentially be repositioned across processes and a goal-driven approach for analyzing possible BPA configurations.

As a software organization matures and expands, it often evolves through different styles of organization, for example, beginning with creative chaos as a start-up, then introducing disciplined processes to raise quality, and later regaining agility through light-weight practices. Recently, many firms join collaborative networks to develop software products and platforms for a shared market, constituting “Software Ecosystems”. At each stage of evolution, the software organization aims to overcome critical challenges faced in its earlier stages, while balancing business, organizational, social, and technical forces of change. To illustrate how the evolutionary trajectory of a software development firm is shaped by various interacting forces, we draw upon a longitudinal case study taken from the literature. We use the i* strategic actors modeling framework to help analyze the forces that trigger the transition from one organizational configuration to another.

Information systems today are expected to function in an increasingly dynamic world with many uncertainties. System development is seldom a linear progression from well-defined, fully-specified requirements to finished products that fully meet the initial requirements. More likely, there are ongoing cycles of exploration, design and implementation, taking into account evolving needs and capabilities, as well as lessons from earlier cycles. Existing requirements modeling and analysis techniques largely presume application settings that are stable and predictable. Can these techniques be used to support analysis in the new dynamic environment? Scenarios from the recent surge in demand for business intelligence capabilities in enterprises provide an interesting setting for examining organizational and IT responses to the challenges of high uncertainty and rapid change. In this paper, we apply existing requirements modeling techniques to these scenarios in order to uncover their inadequacies, and to identify research challenges.

i* is a goal-oriented and agent-oriented modeling framework that focuses on the analysis of intentional and strategic relationships among actors. In this mini-tutorial, we highlight a number of recent applications in practical industrial and business settings.

System designers and requirements analysts face many competing requirements, such as performance, usability, security, cost, and so forth. To make trade-offs among requirements, ideally analysts would like to quantitatively measure consequences of alternative solutions on requirements. However, during the early stages of requirements and system design, it is hard to quantitatively measure all factors and quantify stakeholders' preferences. The Even Swaps method is a technique developed in management science to assist in multi-criteria decision making which allows the use of available but potentially incomplete quantitative and qualitative measures. It teases out the need to elicit importance weights of requirements. Instead, stakeholders are asked how much they would relax one objective to better achieve another. We apply the Even Swaps technique to requirements trade-offs, and supplement it with an algorithm that automates the decision analysis process. The algorithm fins the most distinguishable pair of alternatives and suggests the next requirements to be swapped to stakeholders.

Various governmental or academic institutes survey current security trends, and report vulnerabilities, security breaches, and their costs. However, it is unclear whether (and how) practitioners analyze these vulnerabilities and attacks to arrive at security requirements and decide on security solutions. What modeling methods are used for eliciting, analyzing, and documenting security requirements in real-world practice? This paper intends to answer such questions through a survey of security requirements engineering practices. 374 software professionals from 237 International and Chinese firms participated in the survey. The results show businesses often try to consider security from early stages of the development life cycle, however, ultimately, security is left to be built into the system at the implementation phase. We observed that practitioners favour qualitative risk assessment rather than quantitative approaches, and this helps them consider more varieties of factors when comparing alternative security design solutions.

Software processes have an important role to play in realizing organizational strategies. When a software organization is about to decide on the adoption of a new process, it should have a clear understanding of its own strategic objectives, as well as the potentials of the new method in supporting or hindering its strategic plan. From this perspective, a successful process adoption initiative is one which provides maximum support to the strategic objectives of an organization while producing a minimum of adverse effects.

Software Systems running in the Internet are facing an ever-changing environment, which requires constant monitoring and adaptation facilities to be in place, so that user's needs and system requirements are satisfied on-demand. This paper summarizes our general observation and understanding to how user and system goals can drive the adaptation mechanisms of individual software service modules, implemented as internetware components. In particular, a theoretical typology of different levels of adaptation capability is proposed. Their correspondence with the key characteristics of internetware is analyzed. A common architecture to support the run-time adaptation of internetware is also suggested in company with a development method.

The heavy reliance on the human factor in agile methods poses new challenges for organizations intent on adopting them. Improper role assignment, neglected team dependencies, and overlooked required skills have all been reported as reasons for failures during the introduction of an agile method. Current process modelling languages are not designed for describing or analyzing such human-related issues, and thus, provide little assistance to organizations in the process of adopting an agile method. This paper advocates the use of goal-oriented modeling techniques for depicting social aspects of agile methods. These social models can be used to identify the key factors that contribute to the success or failure of an agile method, thus providing guidance early during the introduction of the method in an organization. The approach is illustrated using the Scrum process.

In this article, we introduce the application of rigorous analysis procedures to goal models to provide several benefits beyond the initial act of modeling. Such analysis can allow modelers to assess the satisfaction of goals, facilitate evaluation of high-level design alternatives, help analysts decide on the high-level requirements and design of the system, test the sanity of a model, and support communication and learning. The analysis of goal models can be done in very different ways depending on the nature of the model and the purpose of the analysis. In our work, we use the Goal-oriented Requirement Language (GRL), which is part of the User Requirements Notation (URN). URN, a new Recommendation of the International Telecommunications Union, provides the first standard goal-oriented language. Using GRL, we develop an approach to analysis that can be done by evaluating qualitative or quantitative satisfaction levels of the actors and intentional elements (e.g., goals and tasks) composing the model. Initial satisfaction levels for some of the intentional elements are provided in a strategy and then propagated to the other intentional elements of the model through the various links that connect them. The results allow for an assessment of the relative effectiveness of design alternatives at the requirements level. Although no specific propagation algorithm is imposed in the URN standard, different criteria for defining evaluation mechanisms are described. We provide three algorithms (quantitative, qualitative, and hybrid) as examples, which satisfy the constraints imposed by the standard. These algorithms have been implemented in the open-source jUCMNav tool, an Eclipse-based editor for URN models. The algorithms are presented and compared with the help of a telecommunication system example. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Security requirements often have implicit assumptions about trust relationships among actors. The more actors trust each other, the less stringent the security requirements are likely to be. Trust always involves the risk of mistrust; hence, trust implies a trade-off: gaining some benefits from depending on a second party in trade for getting exposed to security and privacy risks. When trust assumptions are implicit, these trust trade-offs are made implicitly and in an ad-hoc way. By taking advantage of agent- and goal-oriented analysis, we propose a method for discovering trade-offs that trust relationships bring. This method aims to help the analyst select among alternative dependency relationships by making explicit trust trade-offs. We propose a simple algorithm for making the trade-offs in a way that reaches a balance between costs and benefits.

Since the first IEEE International Requirements Engineering for Services (REFS) workshop took place in the historical capital of China, Beijing, on 23 July 2007, three editions of the workshop have been running as a series at the COMPSAC conference, serving as an interactive forum for in-depth discussion of all issues related to requirements engineering for services. Researchers from the diverse areas of requirements engineering, services engineering, and services management presented and debated major issues, challenges, trends, and technical advances in requirements engineering for services. Based upon the ranking of papers assigned by the program committee in the workshops, a collection of six research papers from the workshop, together with two main conference papers on relevant topics, were invited to submit a revised and extended version to the IEEE Transations on Services Computing (TSC). Of these, two papers are included in this first special section on REFS.

The Internet and related technologies have created enormous potential for disruptive innovations. Businesses engaging in e-commerce must constantly be examining opportunities and threats arising from disruptive change. Modeling techniques have been introduced to help visualize and reason about business models and strategies. This paper offers a modeling approach which characterizes a business model not in terms of flows or exchanges, but the strategic dependencies among various players. The business model is then analyzed in relation to the high-level strategy of the business. When a change arises, competitive scenarios are analyzed in terms of the strategic choices for the incumbent and new entrants. A historical case study from the telecom sector is used to illustrate.

Internet users interact with multiple Web Service Providers (WSP), and therefore, must remember and manage multiple passwords. Users try to overcome the burden of password management by employing insecure solutions such as reusing the same password with several WSP. Identity management systems provide a solution for such problems. The common "assertion-based"' Identity Management systems require a strong trust in the Identity Provider (IdP), which has the power to impersonate any of its users. However, such trust is unlikely to materialize in the global Internet setting. This paper uses a goal-oriented approach for analyzing trust trade-offs of Identity Management systems in the global Internet scenario. We analyze a new proposal for a global Identity Management system named SlashID. SlashID takes advantage of client-side cryptography to eliminate the required trust relationship between the IdP and end users. We analyze and compare the impact of trust trade-offs of the SlashID solution.

Presents the introductory welcome message from the conference proceedings.

Provides a listing of current committee members and society officers.

Summary form only given. Security, privacy, and trust (STP) are increasingly central in many software applications. To produce effective software solutions, it is important to address STP issues and concerns from the earliest stage of identifying and analyzing requirements. I will review recent approaches to STP in requirements engineering, focusing especially on goal-oriented and agent-oriented techniques.

Design for security is extremely complicated due to the unique nature of the issue. It requires a thorough understanding about the social setting of the security system. To obtain such understanding, sensible steps to take include identifying the players involved in the system, recognizing their personal preferences, agenda and power in relation to other players, identifying the assets being protected, the vulnerable points at which the systems may fail when attacked. Equally important is to taking rationale steps to predict most likely attackers, knowing their possible motivations, and capabilities enabled by latest the technologies and resource occupations. Only based on integrated analysis on both sides, rationale, informative and efficient tradeoffs on security can be made. Unfortunately, current system development practices treat design decisions on security in an ad-hoc way, often as an afterthought. This paper proposes to use social modeling concepts to analyze the business and organizational context of systems with regard to security. The main concepts used are actor, role, agent and goal, task, and resource dependencies between actors. The approach encompasses several analysis steps on the functional and non-functional requirements in relevance to security, thus integrating security into the system design process from the outset

As technology design becomes increasingly motivated by business strategy, technology users become wary of vendor intentions. Conversely, technology producers must determine what strategies they can employ to gain the trust of consumers in order to acquire and retain their business. As a result, both parties have a need to understand how business strategies shape technology design, and how such designs alter relationships among stakeholders. In this work, we use the Trusted Computing domain as an example. Can the technology consumer trust the advertised intentions of Trusted Computing Technology? Can the providers of Trusted Computing gain the trust of consumers? We use the i* Modeling Framework to analyze the links between strategies and technologies in terms of a network of social intentional relationships. By applying the qualitative i* evaluation procedure, we probe the intentions behind the strategies of technology providers, facilitating an analysis of trust.

We introduce a variability-intensive approach to goal decomposition that is tailored to support requirements identification for highly customizable software. The approach is based on the semantic characterization of OR-decompositions of goals. We first show that each high-level goal can be associated with a set of concerns, in response to which, alternative refinements of the goal can be introduced. A text corpus relevant to the domain of discourse can be used to derive such variability concerns that are specific to the problem. In parallel, contextual facts that can vary while a goal is being fulfilled are modeled. Then, a high-variability goal model is constructed aiming at responding to the predefined variability concerns completely, while contextual factors are used to test whether it addresses all realistic background circumstances. We apply our approach in a study from the geriatric health care domain

The use of viewpoints has long been proposed as a technique to structure evolving requirements models. In theory, viewpoints should provide better stakeholder traceability, and the ability to discover important requirements by comparing viewpoints. However, this theory has never been tested empirically. This paper reports on an exploratory case study of a key hypothesis of the viewpoints theory, namely that by creating separate viewpoint models to represent different stakeholder contributions, and explicitly merging them, important hidden requirements can be discovered. The case study compared two modelling teams using the i* notation to capture requirements for new Web-based counselling services for a large charitable organisation. One team used viewpoints; the other did not. The conclusions include that viewpoint merging improves the understanding of the problem domain, but is very time consuming. The process of merging was more important than the merged product. The study also indicates a need for better model management tools, as both teams encountered difficulty in managing large, evolving models.

Emerging Web services technologies provide an open infrastructure for automated business interaction, thereby creating new opportunities for business actors to collaborate within a networked constellation of enterprises via the Internet. The basis for a viable network of Web services (the supporting information system of such a networked constellation of enterprises) is a value model that shows sound value propositions to all actors involved. Requirements engineering techniques can be developed to support: (1) exploring alternative business models, and (2) evaluating alternatives on their economic viability, leading into the design and implementation of technical systems. In this paper, we present a business-oriented approach supporting Web services idea exploration (BASSIE), which exploits the synergy between the agent- and goal-oriented i* framework and the value-based e/sup 3/value framework. The approach iterates between exploration of structural alternatives and qualitative evaluation using i*, and quantitative modeling and evaluation of business value using e/sup 3/value. The approach is illustrated with a real life case study in digital music distribution.

Security issues for software systems ultimately concern relationships among social actors stakeholders, system users, potential attackers - and the software acting on their behalf. We propose a methodological framework for dealing with security and privacy requirements based on i*, an agent-oriented requirements modeling language. The framework supports a set of analysis techniques. In particular, attacker analysis helps identify potential system abusers and their malicious intents. Dependency vulnerability analysis helps detect vulnerabilities in terms of organizational relationships among stakeholders. Countermeasure analysis supports the dynamic decision-making process of defensive system players in addressing vulnerabilities and threats. Finally, access control analysis bridges the gap between security requirement models and security implementation models. The framework is illustrated with an example involving security and privacy concerns in the design of agent-based health information systems. In addition, we discuss model evaluation techniques, including qualitative goal model analysis and property verification techniques based on model checking.

Today's requirements engineering approaches focus on notation and techniques for modeling the intended functionality and qualities of a software system. Little attention has been given to systematically understanding and modeling the relationships between business goals and system qualities, and how these goals are met during architectural design. In particular, modeling must encompass changes to business goals over time and their effects upon a system's architecture. This paper reports on a case study, performed at a telecommunication company, that illustrates the decision-making process regarding architectural changes introduced into an existing switching system product. A notation including goals, strategic agents and intentional dependency relationships is used to support the architectural modeling and reasoning.

Requirements are usually understood as stating what a system is supposed to do, as apposed to how it should do it. However, understanding the organizational context and rationales (the "Whys") that lead up to systems requirements can be just as important for the ongoing success of the system. Requirements modelling techniques can be used to help deal with the knowledge and reasoning needed in this earlier phase of requirements engineering. However most existing requirements techniques are intended more for the later phase of requirements engineering, which focuses on completeness, consistency, and automated verification of requirements. In contrast, the early phase aims to model and analyze stakeholder interests and how they might be addressed, or compromised, by various system-and-environment alternatives. This paper argues, therefore, that a different kind of modelling and reasoning support is needed for the early phase. An outline of the i* framework is given as an example of a step in this direction. Meeting scheduling is used as a domain example.

Non-functional requirements (or quality requirements, NFRs) such as confidentiality, performance and timeliness are often crucial to a software system. Our NFR-framework treats NFRs as goals to be achieved during the process of system development. Throughout the process, goals are decomposed, design tradeoffs are analysed, design decisions are rationalised, and goal achievement is evaluated. This paper shows how a historical record of the treatment of NFRs during the development process can also serve to systematically support evolution of the software system. We treat changes in terms: of (i) adding or modifying NFRs, or changing their importance, and (ii) changes in design decisions or design rationale. This incremental approach is illustrated by a study of changes in banking policies at Barclays Bank.

As information systems are increasingly expected to work with humans cooperatively in complex organizational contexts, conceptual modelling techniques need to be extended to relate information structures and processes to business and organizational objectives. We propose a framework which focuses on the modelling of strategic actor relationships (“A-R”) for a richer conceptual model of business processes in their organizational settings. Organizations are viewed as being made up of social actors who are intentional — have motivations, wants, and beliefs — and strategic — they evaluate their relationships to each other in terms of opportunities and vulnerabilities. The framework supports formal modelling of the network of dependency relationships among actors, and the systematic exploration and assessment of alternative process designs in reengineering. The semantics of the modelling concepts are axiomatically characterized. By embedding the framework in the Telos language, the framework can also potentially serve as an early-requirements phase tool in a comprehensive information system development environment.

In attempting to understand information system environments during requirements engineering, it is often helpful to have an understanding of the 'whys' as well as the 'whats' about the environment. A natural way to answer why questions is by tracing them to goals. In an organizational environment, however, the whys do not originate from a single set of given goals. Organizational agents depend on each other for goals to be achieved, tasks to be performed, and resources to be furnished. A requirements model that captures knowledge about an organizational environment can be enriched by including the network of dependency relationships among agents. A set of intentional operators for modeling dependencies among agents is proposed, and a preliminary axiomatic characterization is presented.>