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Value-based requirements engineering in decentralized value networks

Roel WieringaUniversity of Twente

The Netherlands

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Contents

1. VITAL/COOP project description2. Coordination and value modeling3. Trust4. Discussion

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1. Two projects• Value-Based IT ALignment (VITAL)

– Goal: Find techniques to align IT to networked business

• Network of profit-and-loss responsible partners• Examples: RSI Monitoring, on-line selling, product

development– www.vital-project.org

• Cooperation process correctness and trust assumptions (COOP)– Goal: Find techniques to check that coordination

process is “correct’’ w.r.t. networked business model

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Project resources

• Total budget about € M1,5• Free university of Amsterdam & University

of Twente• 3 senior researchers• 6 PhD students• 10 companies in advisory board (growing)

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Project organization

• Subprojects– Value modeling– Coordination process design– IT architecture design– Process maturity

• Monthly researcher’s meetings• Biannual board meeting• Case study research at companies

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Problem structure

• When one model changes, the other usually do too

Value model•Who delivers what to whom

•Goods, services, money•Manager’s view

•Net Present Value computations of cash flow

Process model•Coordination process•Internal business processes

IT model•Coordination IT•Internal IT

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Contents

1. VITAL/COOP project description2. Coordination and value modeling3. Trust4. Discussion

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Coordination modeling

• Many coordination languages: BPEL4WS, WSCI, BPSS, BPMN, ...

• Coordination language design is similar to design of business process languages

• Coordination process design is very different from business process design

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The problem• The businesses being coordinated make their

decisions independently– .... based on expected revenue

• do not want to support each other’s business processes

• do not want to reveal all their secrets to each other

• may behave differently as specified in the coordination process– (dis)trust assumptions

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Our solution• Coordination proces design must be based on a

value model• The value model is a model of cash flow• Businesses agree on value model that is

expected to generate positive revenue for each of them

• Design coordination process that is “correct” w.r.t. this value model.

• Coordination process makes trust assumptions about business actors

• Risk analysis

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Example value model

• Exchanges of commercial value• No data flows, no flow of goods, no

behavior• Instructions for a revenue computation

Dependency path

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Meaning of value model

• Arrows present commercial services– Service provider does something that service

consumer finds useful• Service of A to B may even be realized as

interaction between A and C!– E.g. buyer (consignee) provides security to

seller by buying a letter of credit from a bank• Value model is not a process model

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Coordination process

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Coordination process

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Correctness: First hypothesis

• For each value exchange, the value model designer must give an operational definition– Observable process

• Correct coordination process:– on succesful termination all value exchanges

on a dependency path occurred– on unsuccessful termination none of them

occurred

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Correctness: Second hypothesis

• Some values are only created by large numbers of process executions.– E.g. reputation, trust

• Improved definition:– The cash flow computations over a period of time

must correspond with some set of coordination process executions over the same period of time

• This is where we are now ... need to work this out

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Contents

1. VITAL/COOP project description2. Coordination and value modeling3. Trust4. Discussion

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3. Trust

• Shipper does not want to ship before he is paid– Introduce a bank who buys the goods from

the shipper– and sells them to the consignee– The bank is trusted by all– The bank takes the risk that the consignee will

not pay for the goods– The bank is paid for that by the consignee

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4. Discussion

• We are elaborating consistency definitions by means of examples taken from our business partners

• We test them by doing action research (free consultancy)

• Need to include cost/benefit estimates of alternative IT implementations

• Risk analysis• Business goal modeling

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NPV

• If you have $10 000 now, you can invest it• This is worth more than having $10 000 over three years• Even assuming there is no inflation

This is the risk-free increase