Evolving system architecture to meet changing business goals: an agent and goal-oriented approach

Today´s requirements engineering approaches focus on notation and techniques for modeling the intended functionality and qualities of a software system. Little attention has been given to systematically understanding and modeling the relationships between business goals and system qualities, and how these goals are met during architectural design. In particular, modeling must encompass changes to business goals over time and their effects upon a system´s architecture. This paper reports on a case study, performed at a telecommunication company, that illustrates the decision-making process regarding architectural changes introduced into an existing switching system product. A notation including goals, strategic agents and intentional dependency relationships is used to support the architectural modeling and reasoning