On the alignment between goal models and enterprise models with an ontological account

Abstract

Business process modelling basically comprises an activity whose main goal is to provide a formalization of business processes in an organization or a set of cooperating organizations (Recker, et al., 2006) (van der Aalst, et al., 2003). By modelling an organization’s business processes, it is possible to capture how the organization coordinates the work and resources with the aim of achieving its goals and strategies (Sharp, et al., 2001). Since business processes and goals are intrinsically interdependent, establishing an alignment between the process and the goal domains arises as a natural approach. This thesis reports on a real-life exploratory case study in which we investigated the relationship between the elements of the enterprise (modeled in the ARIS framework) and the goals (modeled in the Tropos framework and modeling language) which are attained by these elements. The case study has been conducted in the Rheumatology Department of a University Hospital in Brazil. In the course of the case study, we have identified the need of splitting this effort into three phases: the elicitation phase (in which goal models and business process models are captured from the organizational domain), the harmonization phase (in which the goal domain is structured for alignment according to the business processes structures that will support it) and the alignment phase (in which the relationships between the goal domain and the elements of the organizational domain are established). In order to investigate the relation between goals and enterprise elements, we propose an ontological account for both architectural domains. We recognize the importance in considering the business process as the means for implementing an enterprise’s strategy, but we do not exclude the remaining enterprise elements. Furthermore, we are concerned with both the identification of the relationships and with a classification for their nature.