Goal Identification and Refinement in the Specification of Information Systems

Ph.D. Thesis
Annie I. Antón
Georgia Institute of Technology
June 1997

The objective of this work is to develop, validate and assess a goal-based method, which provides procedural support, for the identification, elaboration, refinement, and organization of goals in the specification of software-based information systems. The two main contributions of this work to current goal-refinement requirements methods are:

The extension of current goal-based methods with the provision of strategies for the initial identification and construction of goals.
Provision of a set of guidelines and recurring question types which suggest goal identification and refinement strategies and techniques.

Existing goal-based methods stress the need to characterize, categorize, decompose and structure goals. However, they fail to offer strategies for the initial identification and construction of goals. It is assumed that the goals already exist in some artifact. However, if goals have not been previously specified, how does one go about specifying them, and how does one know when all of the goals have been completely specified? Strategies are needed to resolve these issues. Our research has enabled us to develop a method which offers a straightforward, methodical approach to identifying system (and enterprise) goals and requirements. It suggests goal identification and refinement strategies and techniques by including a set of guidelines and recurring questions types. Use of this method will produce a software specification of the functional requirements in the form of goal schemas showing behaviors in terms of goals, their relationships, constraints, and obstacles, as well as agent responsibilities.

The following postscript files are copyrighted by Annie I. Antón (June 1997).

Section/Chapter		Pages
Title Page		i-ii
Dedication		iii-iv
Acknowledgements		v-viii
Table of Contents		ix-xii
List of Tables		xiii-xv
List of Figures		xvi-xviii
Glossary		ixx-xxii
Summary		xxiii
Chapter 1: Introduction		1-12
Chapter 2: Survey of Related Work		13-34
Chapter 3: Case Studies		35-66
Chapter 4: The Goal-Based Requirements Analysis Method		67-134
Chapter 5: Heuristics and Guidelines		135-184
Chapter 6: Validation		185-226
Chapter 7: Conclusions		227-238
Appendix A: Vacation/Sick Leave Problem Description		239-240
Appendix B: Vacation/Sick Leave Problem Description		241-242
Appendix C: Summary of GBRAM Heuristics		243-252
Bibliography		253-260
Vita		261

Last Modified: February 16, 1999 by Annie I. Antón (anton@csc.ncsu.edu)

as of March 18, 1999.