Discovering Requirements through Goal-Driven Process Mining

Software systems are designed to support their users in performing tasks that are parts of more general processes. Unfortunately, software designers often make invalid assumptions about the users' processes and therefore about the requirements to support such processes. Eliciting and validating such assumptions through manual means (e.g., through observations, interviews, and workshops) is expensive, time-consuming, and may fail to identify the users' real processes. Using process mining may reduce these problems by automating the monitoring and discovery of the actual processes followed by a crowd of users. The Crowd provides an opportunity to involve diverse groups of users to interact with a system and conduct their intended processes. This implicit feedback in the form of discovered processes can then be used to modify the existing system's functionalities and ensure whether or not a software product is used as initially designed. In addition, the analysis of user-system interactions may reveal lacking functionalities and quality issues. These ideas are illustrated on the GreenSoft personal energy management system.