Metamodel 1: For Business Analysts Developing Requirements for a New System

The client for this metamodel was the business analysis group at a large insurance company. The group was assigned projects to build business requirements for new systems. To begin, the group needed to demonstrate to their clients (business owners within their company) how each project that was undertaken related to lines of business, products, states, goals, and organizations within the business. A project profile definition was created to capture this information. Next, the team worked to model a business process, and then to link steps within the business process to use cases. It was these use cases that would become system requirements. Each use case was modeled both in a use case diagram and one or more use case flow diagrams to show the interaction between the user and the system. With these as a basis, the next step was to derive textual requirements - both functional and non-functional. The group then worked together with business owners and development to assess both the business priority and the technical difficulty of each requirement, and to assign requirements to project increments. Requirement status was tracked throughout the life of the project.