Extending Gaia with Agent Design and Iterative Development

Agent-oriented methodologies are an important means for constructing agent-based systems in a controlled repeatable form. However, agent-oriented methodologies have not received much acceptance in industrial environments, which can be partially explained by drawbacks in current agent-oriented methodologies, mainly in terms of applicability and comprehensiveness. Specifically, Gaia, one of the most cited methodologies, does not consider agent design, nor exhibits an iterative methodological process. On the other hand, Gaia is based on organisational abstractions (which makes it suitable to cope with the design of complex systems) and possesses a simple methodological process whose neutrality makes it suitable for extensions. In this paper, we extend Gaia in two directions: we incorporate an agent design phase, and we enhance the methodological process with the use of iterations.