On the lightweight use of goal-oriented models for software package selection

Abstract

Software package selection can be seen as a process of matching the products available in the marketplace with the requirements stated by an organization. This process may involve hundreds of requirements and products and therefore we need a framework abstract enough that focus on the most important factors that influence the selection. Due to their strategic nature, goal-oriented models are good candidates to be used as a basis of such a framework. They have demonstrated their usefulness in contexts like early requirements engineering, organizational analysis and business process reengineering. In this paper, we identify three different types of goal-oriented models useful in the context of package selection when some assumptions hold. Market segment models provide a shared view to all the packages of the segment; software package models are derived from them. The selection can be seen as a process of matching among the organizational model and the other models; in our proposal this marching is lightweight, since no model checking is performed. We define our approach rigorously by means of a UML conceptual data model that may serve as starting point for prospective tool support.