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114 GIORGINI, KOLP, AND MYLOPOULOS
Figure 7.12 Comparison of Different Software Development Methodologies

for conceptualizing an application; (b) offer different sets of questions to be asked in building
models for that application; and (c) offer different tools to support various forms of analysis
for these models.

CONCLUSIONS

We have presented the Tropos methodology for developing agent-oriented information systems.
The methodology is particularly appropriate for generic, component-based software for e-business
applications that can be downloaded and used in a variety of operating environments and com-
puting platforms. The methodology is currently supported by a range of formal analysis tools
(www.troposproject.org), and its application is being explored along a number of fronts: design
of Web services and business processes (Lau and Mylopoulos, 2004), design of autonomic soft-
ware (Lapouchnian et al., 2005), and also design of Web sites and user interfaces (Bolchini and
Mylopoulos, 2003).
Tropos is founded on intentional and social concepts inspired by early requirements analysis.
The modeling framework views software from five complementary perspectives:

• Social—who are the relevant actors and what do they want? What are their obligations?
What are their capabilities?
• Intentional—what are the relevant goals and how do they interact? How are they being
fulfilled, and by whom?
• Communicational—how do actors communicate with each other to fulfill their goals?
• Process-oriented—what are the relevant business/computer processes? Who is responsible
for what?
• Object-oriented—what are the relevant objects and classes, along with their interrelation-
ships?