Modeling the Requirements Engineering Process

Information System Engineering has made the assumption that an Information System is supposed to capture some excerpt of the real world history and hence has concentrated on modeling. This has caused the introduction of a large variety of models and especially conceptual models by which an information system can be modelled in high level conceptual terms. By contrast, very little attention has been paid to the conceptual modeling process which has the purpose of investigating the requirements of the users community and abstracting from that the conceptual specification of the information system. This results in a low level of support provided to requirements engineers. However, the emphasis on system modeling is shifting to process modeling. The need for process modeling motivates the process stream of the NATURE Esprit project. The Requirements Engineering Process model developed within this project is the main topic of this paper. The particular RE process modeling approach chosen in NATURE emphasises the notion of decision within the context in which it is taken. The paper outlines the modeling approach. It details and exemplifies the main concepts proposed to model the RE process and their relationships. Finally, it sketches the advantages of the process model by introducing its different usages.