Unravelling Organisational Rule Systems in Requirements Engineering
Jöran Lindeberg, Eric-Oluf Svee, Martin Henkel
TL;DR
Complex IT systems and organisational context are tightly intertwined, demanding a holistic approach in requirements engineering. The paper introduces organisational rule systems as a conceptual lens to describe how rules govern and are shaped by IT within modern enterprises, derived from a critical literature review across SBVR, MOS, and systems thinking. It articulates three core components—Individual Rules, Properties of Rules, and Rules as Part of Systems—and discusses rule interdependencies, enforcement, durability, and emergence to outline a first step in a broader research agenda. This framework aims to help requirements engineers assess the influence of organisational rules on IT design and to guide future modelling methods and empirical grounding in regulated domains.
Abstract
Context and motivation: Requirements engineering of complex IT systems needs to manage the many, and often vague and conflicting, organisational rules that exist in the context of a modern enterprise. At the same time, IT systems affect the organisation, essentially setting new rules on how the organisation should work. Question/problem: Gathering requirements for an IT system involves understanding the complex rules that govern an organisation. The research question is: How can the holistic properties of organisational rules be conceptualised? Principal ideas/results: This paper introduces the concept of organisational rule systems that may be used to describe complex organisational rules. The concept and its components are presented as a conceptual framework, which in turn is condensed into a conceptual framework diagram. The framework is grounded in a critical literature review. Contribution: The conceptual framework will, as a first step of a wider research agenda, help requirements engineers understand the influence of organisational rules.