Requirements Engineering Based on Business Process Models: A Case Study

This paper reports a study in which business process modelling was regarded as a useful tool for requirements engineering. We have used business process models as a starting point to derive alternative sets of requirements for a process-oriented system. These alternative sets capture different decisions regarding the intended "level of automation" for the various activities in a business process. The approach is demonstrated in a case study which consists of the development of a real system to manage processes in a Human Resources (HR) Department of a large organization. We use a requirements specification that was previously obtained through what we characterize as a "conventional" requirements engineering technique and we compare it with the requirements specifications derived from the business process model. We discuss the impact of the use of business process models in the completeness, correctness, consistency and traceability of requirements in the case study.