On the Use of Goal Models and Business Process Models for Elicitation of System Requirements

Goal modelling and business process modelling are two techniques that can be used for elicitation of system requirements of an information system. In general, goal-based approaches aim at supporting the objectives that an organization needs to achieve, whereas business process-based approaches aim at supporting the activity of an organization. Consequently, it could be assumed that these two types of approaches represent completely different perspectives for elicitation of system requirements. In this paper we argue that a correspondence exists between the perspectives and that they can be considered equivalent in some operational aspects. Therefore, the use of a perspective also implies support for the other. This argument is based on the definition of a set of guidelines that shows how a goal model can be derived from a business process model. As a result, we discuss when selection of one of the perspectives or their combination would be more suitable for requirements elicitation.