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AGENT-ORIENTED INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYSIS AND DESIGN 115
The requirements-driven approach, on which Tropos is based, suggests that the methodology
favorably complements proposals for agent-oriented programming environments (Castro, Kolp,
and Mylopoulos, 2002; Bresciani et al., 2004) given that—according to Tropos—software is
conceived in terms of (system) actors, goals, and social dependencies among them. Moreover,
it does not force the developer to operationalize these intentional and social structures early on
during the development process, thereby avoiding the hardwiring of solutions into software
requirements.
Clearly, Tropos is not the right methodology for developing any kind of software. For system
software (such as compilers and operating systems) or embedded software, the operating envi-
ronment of the system-to-be is an engineering artifact, with no identifiable stakeholders. In such
cases, traditional software development techniques may be most appropriate. However, a large
and growing percentage of software systems today operate within open, dynamic organizational
environments. For such software, the Tropos methodology and others in the same family apply and
promise to deliver more robust, reliable, and usable software systems. The Tropos methodology in
its current form is also not suitable for sophisticated software agents requiring advanced reasoning
mechanisms for plans, goals, and negotiations. Further extensions will be required, mostly at the
detailed design phase, to address this class of software applications.
Much remains to be done to further refine the proposed design framework and validate its
usefulness with large case studies. We are currently working on the development of additional
formal analysis techniques for Tropos, including goal and social network analysis. We are also
developing tools that support different phases of the methodology.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work has been partially funded by PAT-STAMPS and PRIN-MEnSA projects.

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