Towards early consideration of non-functional requirements at the business process level

Non-functional (or quality) requirements are one of the key issues that need to be addressed during the development of any software system. Experience has shown that as the alignment of business processes and the supporting information systems become increasingly close and robust, early consideration of nonfunctional aspects is needed to considerably reduce subsequent rework. In this paper, we present a method based on quality models and related checklists for integrated treatment of non-functional requirements in a measurable and testable way at the business process level. The benefit of such an early quality consideration consists of closer and more robust alignment between business processes and supporting information systems by providing early conflict solution, easier design derivation, and continuous traceability up to the strategic goals. This will lead to less rework effort during development or maintenance and thus to more flexible business support.