Business Process Methodology
Deriving Use Case Diagrams from Business Process Models
Remco M. Dijkman University of Twente, Faculty of Computer Science P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede The Netherlands dijkman@cs.utwente.nl Stef M.M. Joosten Ordina Finance Utopics, and Open University of the Netherlands P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen The Netherlands joosten@anaxagoras.com
Abstract
In this paper we introduce a technique to simplify requirements capture. The technique can be used to derive functional requirements, specified in the form of UML use case diagrams, from existing business process models. Because use case diagrams have to be constructed by performing interviews, and business process models usually are available in a company, use case diagrams can be produced more quickly when derived from business proces models. The use case diagrams that result from applying the technique, specify a software system that provides automated support for the original business processes. We also show how the technique was successfully evaluated in practice.
1. Introduction
Capturing requirements is widely considered to be one of the most difficult tasks in software engineering. At the same time, errors made in this phase are among the most difficult to detect and the most expensive to correct [1]. Therefore, much can be gained from requirements capturing techniques that speed up the creation of requirements specifications, and produce robust requirements specifications. In this paper we propose such a technique. The technique we propose is based on the observation that one of the forms of requirements engineering, the use case based requirements engineering [3, 4, 12, 10], bears much resemblance to business process modeling. The resemblance between use case based requirements engineering and business process modeling becomes obvious when inspecting the following definitions of use case and business process. According to Jacobson [10] a UML use case: ’... specifies a sequence of actions, including variants,
Remco M. Dijkman University of Twente, Faculty of Computer Science P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede The Netherlands dijkman@cs.utwente.nl Stef M.M. Joosten Ordina Finance Utopics, and Open University of the Netherlands P.O. Box 2960, 6401 DL Heerlen The Netherlands joosten@anaxagoras.com
Abstract
In this paper we introduce a technique to simplify requirements capture. The technique can be used to derive functional requirements, specified in the form of UML use case diagrams, from existing business process models. Because use case diagrams have to be constructed by performing interviews, and business process models usually are available in a company, use case diagrams can be produced more quickly when derived from business proces models. The use case diagrams that result from applying the technique, specify a software system that provides automated support for the original business processes. We also show how the technique was successfully evaluated in practice.
1. Introduction
Capturing requirements is widely considered to be one of the most difficult tasks in software engineering. At the same time, errors made in this phase are among the most difficult to detect and the most expensive to correct [1]. Therefore, much can be gained from requirements capturing techniques that speed up the creation of requirements specifications, and produce robust requirements specifications. In this paper we propose such a technique. The technique we propose is based on the observation that one of the forms of requirements engineering, the use case based requirements engineering [3, 4, 12, 10], bears much resemblance to business process modeling. The resemblance between use case based requirements engineering and business process modeling becomes obvious when inspecting the following definitions of use case and business process. According to Jacobson [10] a UML use case: ’... specifies a sequence of actions, including variants,
References: [18] Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 76–90, Berlin, 2001