CAPTURING SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS FOR BUSINESS PROCESS MODEL ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of software requirements capturing for business process model evaluation and recommendations generation to suggest how detected modeling errors may be eliminated in order to improve business process model correctness. Existing software tools for business process model analysis are based on metrics and thresholds that allow assume presence of errors in business process models, but they are not capable to recommend structural changes required to eliminate detected modeling errors. Therefore, business process model analysis and improvement tasks become relevant, since early detection and elimination of possible errors presented in business process models may allow organizations avoid extra costs that may occur on any of the steps of business process lifecycle. Since business process models are shared organizational assets, it is also necessary to consider the capabilities of collaborative and concurrent usage of business process models by multiple stakeholders. Hence, the workflow of business process model analysis and improvement was analyzed and its key steps, which describe expected user and software behavior, were formalized using the IDEF0 functional model. Functional software requirements were captured in the form of user stories according to modern agile practices of software development. These user stories are based on features and drawbacks of existing software tools for business process model analysis. Captured user stories were formalized using the use case modeling. Non-functional software requirements were also captured; they include maintainability, readability, testability, understandability, integrability, and complexity requirements. Captured requirements can be used to design and develop business process model analysis and improvement software capable to provide recommendations to eliminate detected modeling errors.