Goal and Agent Modelling Support for Software Engineering

Communications and Information Technology Ontario (CITO)
Research Project
Principal Investigator: Prof. Eric Yu
Industry Partner: Mitel Corp.
Duration: 2000-2002

This project aims to use goal and agent modelling techniques to improve the speed, quality, traceability and accountability of software engineering activities, and hence the flexibility and robustness of the software.

Goals (and other intentional modelling constructs such as belief, ability, commitment, etc.) will be used to explicitly relate the many steps and (intermediate) products in software engineering from business and product objectives and plans to requirements, architecture, design, to run-time execution. Goals and methods for achieving goals are used to help generate and analyze the space of alternatives and to support decision-making throughout. Non-functional qualities (such as time-to-market, flexibility, openness, performance, robustness, security, maintainability, evolvability, etc.) and their interactions are dealt with systematically using the concept of softgoals [MCY99].
Agent modelling constructs (e.g., roles, positions, and other social actor concepts) will be used to encapsulate complexity in large-scale systems. Agents have autonomy (local decision-making abilities based on their goals, know-how, and resources) but depend on each other. Complex software systems are modelled and analyzed as networks of autonomous but inter-dependent agents during development and at run-time.

These novel mechanisms for modelling software (during development and throughout their lifetime of execution and evolution) are needed in today’s environment of constant and rapid change, open networked systems, and high expectation for reliability and robustness.
The project will build on techniques and experiences from previous CITO/ITRC projects which developed goal and agent modelling at the business process level and at the software architecture level. This project will extend the techniques to link across diverse software engineering activities, with emphasis on the use of goal and agent techniques in conjunction with other existing or emerging software engineering techniques. The investigations will be conducted in industrial settings on actual development projects with the industrial partner.

Back to Eric Yu homepage