Combined propagation-based reasoning with goal and feature models

Abstract

The User Requirements Notation (URN) is an international requirements engineering standard published by the International Telecommunication Union. URN supports goal-oriented and scenario-based modeling as well as analysis. Feature modeling, on the other hand, is a well-establishing technique for capturing commonalities and variabilities of Software Product Lines. When combined with URN, it is possible to reason about the impact of feature configurations on stakeholder goals and system qualities, thus helping to identify the most appropriate features for a stakeholder. Combined reasoning of goal and feature models is also fundamental to Concern-Driven Development, where concerns are composed not only based on functionality expressed with feature models, but also based on impact on stakeholder goals. Therefore, an analysis technique for feature and goal models based on a single conceptual model is desirable, because of its potential to streamline model analysis and reduce the complexity of the analysis framework. This paper introduces such a technique, i.e., a single, propagation-based reasoning algorithm that supports combined reasoning of goal and feature models and offers additional usability improvements over existing goal-oriented reasoning mechanisms.