BPMN-Based Specification of Task Descriptions: Approach and Lessons Learnt

摘要

[Context & motivation] The need of organizational modelling during the requirements engineering process of an information system has been widely acknowledged, and business process modelling can be considered a must. Nonetheless, the specification of functional requirements can be inadequate if business processes are not properly analysed so as to elicit these requirements. [Question/problem] There is a gap between business processes and functional requirements that must be bridged in order to specify the functional requirements of an information system. In addition, means of precisely and homogeneously elicit these requirements from business processes are necessary. [Principal ideas/results] The goals of this paper are: 1) to present an approach that provides methodological guidance to properly specify functional requirements from business processes; and 2) to report on practical experience using the approach. The approach is based on the analysis and graphical enrichment of BPMN diagrams for the elicitation and specification of functional requirements in the form of task descriptions, and it has been applied in field trials with a software development company. [Contribution] The main contributions of the paper are: 1) the extension of BPMN for proper elicitation of task descriptions; 2) the provision of detailed guidance in order to adequately use BPMN diagrams for the specification of task descriptions; and 3) the presentation of the lessons learnt by using the approach.