Aligning business strategy to enterprise models requires explicit models from both areas, mapped to each other. Mapping existing business strategy definition approaches to requirement engineering practices improves strategy dissemination towards development. In this paper we present an illustration of such a mapping using the Strategy Maps and Balanced Scorecards as a business strategy approach and iStar (i*) as a requirements engineering practice exemplified using a case scenario.
Organizations aim at enabling the communication of business strategy by
linking decision makers to practitioners, to align people, products and services with
long-term visions, and help in ensuring the strategy’s successful
implementation. Various alignment efforts have addressed the alignment between business
strategy and requirements for system development in accordance to stakeholders
needs and intentions [
To address this gap, in a previous study [
In this section we present how concepts of SMBSC can be mapped to i* in respect to their meta-models.
The Strategy Map class is used to capture the complete SMBSC including all causality relationships among all goals across an organization, therefore, using i* to capture the complete SMBSC requires both the Strategic Dependency model (SD) as well as the Strategic Rationale Model (SR) 1, which capture respectively, all the dependencies within the organizational context modeled as well as all the intentional elements.
The notion of grouping is present in both meta-models. In SMBSC there exists a Group class that captures all groupings of goals, where the highest level of grouping is among the four perspectives expressed through a specialization to a Perspective class. Other groupings within each perspective are captured by a recursive association, enhanced by constraints that make sure groups form a tree structure through nesting. In i* the notion of grouping is not present as such, however, the abstract notion of an actor is used to include the relevant intentional elements and there is a distinction between the dependencies among actors (SD) and the detailed rational of their dependencies (SR). Therefore, the notion of actor in i* can be related to the group of SMBSC and instead of constructing actor models, we are constructing group models. The i* actor can facilitate the Group class of SMBSC by extending its boundaries to facilitate organizational groupings, hence represent an organizational entity with defined dependencies. Therefore, for SMBSC, the SD is fixed with four abstract actors which refer to the organizational perspectives of SMBSC. The dependencies between those perspectives adhere to the i* meta model (the DependencyRelationship class); one is a dependee and the other is the depender. Similarly, dependencies may exist for any subgrouping (various Group Types), across the actors defined within actors that represent different perspectives.
In SMBSC the Goal class encompasses all goals defined across the four perspectives which are not necessarily measurable. Measurable goals extend the strategy map into balanced scorecards. A measurable goal, which is an objective in SMBSC, is also a goal in i*, whereas a non-measurable goal, which is not an objective in SMBSC, is a soft-goal in i*. The Milestone class, as well as the Target class, are intermediate states of an objective, usually related to some deadline or some value as mandated by the Measure class, used to demonstrate an objective’s achievement. Both milestone and target, in conjunction to measure, are expressed as i* goals. The Initiative class in SMBSC can be either a Task or a Plan or a Resource (consumed or produced) in i*. In SMBSC, 1 The instantiation of the Dependency class and the InternalElement class indicates the existence of the SD model the SR model respectively. the associations linking goals (influences, is influenced by ) adhere to the InternalElementRelationship of i* in a constraint manner. i* goals originating from SMBSC objectives are linked to i* goals originating from SMBSC milestones and targets through MeansEnd, i* goals originating from SMBSC objectives can be linked to i* soft-goals originating from SMBSC goals (non-measurable) through MeansEnd, and the opposite, i* tasks or plans (not resources) originating from SMBSC initiatives can be linked to i* goals originating from SMBSC milestones and targets, not objectives, through MeansEnd.
In SMBSC a theme captures a particular selection of goals across the four perspectives, with significant interest. This can be expressed in i* using the IntentionalType of the Dependency class (critical, open, committed). Therefore, all dependencies of type critical constitute a theme. Similarly to classes and associations, constraints defined for the SMBSC meta-model have also been considered when defining the mappings. Due to space limitations we present an example of two constraints for the goal class.
In SMBSC, every goal included in a theme is also included in the strategy map for which the theme is defined. In i*, a Theme consists of all the nodes whose DependencyRelationship is of critical DependencyStrength (SD models), which when expanded they include InternalElements, such as goals. Therefore, goals included in actors who are related with critical dependencies belong to a theme and also belong to the SR and SD model, ergo to the complete Strategy Map, as mapped earlier. In SMBSC, goal influences are restricted according to the perspective they belong to, therefore, financial goals can be influenced by customer goals and other financial goals while they can only influence other financial goals only. Therefore, financial goals can be dependers to customer goals and other financial goals while they can be dependees to other financial goals only. Customer goals can be influenced by internal goals and other customer goals while they can influence financial goals and other customer goals. Therefore, customer goals can be dependers to internal goals and other customer goals while they can be dependees to financial goals and other customer goals. Internal goals can be influenced by learning and growth goals and other internal goals while they can influence customer goals and other internal goals. Therefore, internal goals can be dependers to learning and growth goals and other internal goals while they can be dependees to customer goals and other internal goals. Learning and growth goals can be influenced only by other learning and growth goals while they can influence internal goals and other learning and growth goals. Therefore, learning and growth goals can be dependers to only other learning and growth goals while they can be dependees to internal goals and other learning and growth goals. In i* this is captured by the fixed dependencies among perspectives. 3
To illustrate the applicability of our mappings, we use the case of ABB Industrie
AG [
Based on the aforementioned mappings, the SD model consists of the four perspectives of ABB Industrie which are presented as actors along with their fixed dependencies following the constraints exemplified.
For the SR model, the SD model is expanded to provide the InternalElements of each perspective. Milestones and targets of SMBSC are mapped to i* goals and are linked through mean-end links both between themselves as well as with i* goals originating from the SMBSC goals. For the potential perspective (figure 1) the goal End of 1st year Avg: 5 jobs to which an employee can be assigned to originates from the SMBSC milestone End of 1st year: 5, where the SMBSC measure is the Average number of jobs to which an employee can be assigned. Therefore, this goal is means to the end expressed by the goal End of 2nd year Avg: 7 jobs to which an employee can be assigned to, which originates from the SMBSC milestone End of 2nd year: 7, where the SMBSC measure is the Average number of jobs to which an employee can be assigned. Consequently, this goal is the means to the end expressed by the goal End of 3rd year Avg: 9 jobs to which an employee can be assigned to, which originates from the SMBSC target End of 3rdd year: 9, where the SMBSC measure is the Average number of jobs to which an employee can be assigned. Finally, this goal is one of two means to the end expressed by the goal Competent and motivated employees, which originates from the SMBSC goal Our employees are competent and motivated, where the SMBSC measure is the Average number of jobs to which an employee can be assigned.
Initiatives (named Strategic Programs in [
In this paper, despite the different purpose and domains of use of SMBSC and i*, we have provided concept mappings between the two meta-models exemplified with an illustrative case scenario for which we have successfully modeled SMBSC using i* (figure 1).
Using i* to model SMBSC allows transition to requirements engineering supporting business-IT alignment methods. When i* is used during the early phase of requirements engineering, it can be enriched with stakeholders’ intentional elements from SMBSC. The unified i* meta-model supports OrDecomposition, which can facilitate SMBSC with alternatives for initiatives. Contribution links provided by the unified i* meta-model (enough, positive, notenough, negative) could be used among goals and soft-goals in SMBSC allowing the identification of possible conflicts or synergies among the goals set, which is currently not present. By using the i* unified meta-model, our mappings are applicable to two variants of i*, resulting into greater applicability.
Additionally, the mappings have brought up some unaddressable issues, which
could be used to extend the i* unified meta-model. (a)The class Measure in
SMBSC has not been mapped directly to any notion or construct of the i*
metamodel but it has been used implicitly when expressing i* goals originating from
SMBSC milestones and targets. (b)The links between milestones, targets and
objectives; in SMBSC there is a sequence expressed between these notions and
i* does not support any kind of timeliness. The result is that each task is linked
to every goal originating from SMBSC milestones and targets through means
end links. The introduction of a Precedence link as a construct to address the
issue of sequences and priorities has been proposed in [
Finally, our future research steps include the evaluation of our mappings within a case where SMBSC will be the starting point but it will involve the early phase of requirements engineering, to illustrate the potential for traceability from strategy to concrete requirements.