Requirements Engineering for Enterprise Systems
Michael Rosemann · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · 2001
Requirements Engineering for Enterprise Systems can be differentiated in developing and configuring these comprehensive solutions. This paper focuses on the system configuration. This process is supported by implementation tools, which guide the project team through the system individualization. A main activity within this process is the configuration of reference models, which support the specification of requirements related to Enterprise Systems. Enterprise Systems reference models, however, do not depict the actual configuration potential of the system, but rather describe the complete system functionality and structure. This paper suggests modifications of reference modeling techniques for Enterprise Systems. These extensions allow the exact specification of configuration opportunities. Thus, they facilitate the use of conceptual models for all stages of an Enterprise System lifecycle. The presented research uses reference data models and the market leading mySAP applications as examples. Enterprise System Lifecycle The process of introducing Enterprise Systems is significantly different from the well-discussed classical software engineering lifecycle (Figure 1). After a common phase of defining project objectives, analyzing the current situation and developing a business blueprint (to-be-model), Enterprise Systems management contains the two main phases of system selection and configuration (Kirchmer, 2000). Configuration management includes the individualization of the system and the development of add-on functionality. This activity if of enormous complexity as the configuration of an Enterprise Systems requires the comprehensive selection of relevant parameters. This process can easily contain the evaluation of more than 1,000 alternatives. Most Enterprise Systems support the implementation team with step-by-step guidelines, which lead the project team through the required configuration process. Similar to the classical software development process, the configuration of Enterprise Systems has a requirements engineering phase. However, instead of developing conceptual models from scratch, requirements engineering for Enterprise Systems consists of a continuous process of specifying reference models. This specification includes the selection between given alternatives, the evaluation of optional alternatives, the confirmation and eventual modification of defaults, the entering of master data for the