A Preliminary Investigation of the Utility of Goal Model Construction

Naomi Cebula*, Lily Diao*, Alicia M. Grubb, “A Preliminary Investigation of the Utility of Goal Model Construction.” Proceedings of the 13th International i* Workshop (iStar), 2020.

Paper Talk Slides

Abstract: Goal models have long been used in the literature to model and reason about stakeholders’ intentions. Prior work proposed several studies aimed at investigating what utility stakeholders derive from constructing and analyzing goal models. We designed and conducted an initial empirical study that explores the construction stage of goal modeling, asking whether stakeholders benefit from manually drawing their model. We recruited eight qualified participants and asked each to create a goal model for a decision they were considering, while talking out loud. Half of the participants in this study used BloomingLeaf, while the remaining participants drew goal models by hand. Using information gathered through an online pre-study questionnaire, we constructed a goal model for each participant. Participants compared our generated models with their manually created ones. We used open coding to find themes and categories for qualitative responses. Analysis showed participants preferred their own model to the researcher generated one. The results of which have implications for future studies, as well as goal model adoption and automation.