Integrating visual goal models into the Rational Unified Process

The Rational Unified Process is a comprehensive process model that is tailorable, provides templates for the software engineering products, and integrates the use of the Unified Modeling Language (UML); it is rapidly becoming a de facto standard for developing software. The process supports the definition of requirements at multiple levels. Currently, the early requirements, or goals, are captured in a textual document called the Vision Document, as the UML does not include a goal modeling diagram. The goals are subsequently refined into software requirements, captured in UML Use Case Diagrams. Given the well documented advantages of visual modeling techniques in requirements engineering, including the efficient communication and understanding of complex information among numerous diverse stakeholders, the need for an enhanced version of the Vision Document template which supports the visual modeling of goals is identified. Here, an Enhanced Vision Document is proposed which integrates two existing visual goal models: AND/OR Graph for functional goals and Softgoal Interdependency Graph for non-functional goals. A specific approach to establishing traceability relationships from the goals to the Use Cases is presented. Tool support has been developed for the Enhanced Vision Document template; the approach is illustrated using an example system called the Quality Assurance Review Assistant Tool.