A systemic paradigm for early IT system requirements based on regulation principles

IT system is a general term for all software based business applications used in enterprises. IT systems support the actions of an enterprise by processing information about the enterprise and its environment and by providing this information to the enterprise and its stakeholders. An enterprise's actions have a direct influence on its ability to succeed in its environment. IT systems, therefore, have a direct influence on the enterprise's long term success. Hence, IT systems are considered to be of strategic importance in most contemporary enterprises. Although enterprises, most of the time, attempt to maintain their identity, forces within them and in their environment push them to change. Enterprise strategy therefore seeks to balance the need to remain the same with the need to change. This balance is maintained by specifying change that the enterprise is capable of sustaining and that the enterprise believes are necessary for its continued success. The design of IT systems should reflect this need for stability and change. The requirements of an IT system are the description of what the IT system will be like and how it will behave. The initial understanding of the requirements is called early requirements. Early requirements define the problems the enterprise is trying to solve and sketch the possible solutions to these problems. An envisioned IT system is often part of these solutions. Enterprise Architecture (EA) and Goal-Directed Requirements Engineering (GDRE) propose methods for defining early requirements by considering the goals of the enterprise and its stakeholders. The concept of goal is used to give structure to the different perspectives on the enterprise defined by its stakeholders and to express the resulting requirements for the IT system. The EA and GDRE literature does not propose a conceptual foundation that gives meaning to the different kinds of goals specified by the EA and GDRE methods as well as how these goals are formed and modified in enterprises. Moreover, EA and GDRE methods are often influenced by Business Process Reengineering (BPR) which is known for specifying radical, often unsustainable change. The resulting early requirements specify goals that could have been changed or that specify too much change for the enterprise. The Lightswitch approach, described in this thesis, was designed as a tool for IT system designers to create initial requirements taking into account the enterprise's needs for stability and change in terms of goals. The Lightswitch approach consists of a conceptualization and a modeling framework. The Lightswitch conceptualization explains the goal-directed behavior of enterprises from the standpoint of the maintenance of success in a changing environment. It is based on General Systems Thinking (GST) and Cybernetics principles. Combined, these theoretical perspectives offer an evolutionary viewpoint describing enterprises as systems that maintain their internal order by regulating their re