From Requirements to Architectural Design –Using Goals and Scenarios

To strengthen the connection between requirements and design during the early stages of architectural design, a designer would like to have notations to help visualize the incremental refinement of an architecture from initially abstract descriptions to increasingly concrete components and interactions, all the while maintaining a clear focus on the relevant requirements at each step. We propose the combined use of a goal-oriented language GRL and a scenarios-oriented architectural notation UCM. Goals are used in the refinement of functional and non-functional requirements, the exploration of alternatives, and their operationalization into architectural constructs. The scenario notation is used to depict the incremental elaboration and realization of requirements into architectural design. The approach is illustrated with an example from the telecom domain.