Aligning processes with high-level requirements: Goal-model-based compliance checking

Context: Process compliance refers to the alignment between business processes and regulatory requirements. Compliance is challenging because it requires expressing the intent and possible interpretations of laws into
formal models, aligning models with foreseeable executions, and inspecting whether these executions could generate violations. While business process compliance has been studied through conformance checking techniques, most regulatory requirements are defined in subjective and high-level terms, limiting the application of rule- and alignment-checking algorithms to restricted cases where requirements are formally specified.

Objective: This paper investigates how compliance can be assessed against high-level and non-functional requirements rather than low-level process events. We aim to raise the abstraction level of compliance checking from specific task execution to the satisfaction of high-level business goals and subjective qualities.
Method: We propose a framework that links process models with goal models to capture functional decomposition, non-functional requirements, and contribution links, developed iteratively with legal practitioners.
Business processes (imperative and declarative) are represented as labeled transition systems (LTS), while goals and qualities are modeled using iStar models. A mapping function synchronizes process activities with goal elements. Compliance is then checked through state reachability, where all qualities are satisfied, with computational support from the Kogi tool. We refine compliance into weak, strong, and monotonic quality satisfaction, also called stability.
Results: From a technical view, the framework has demonstrated expressiveness, feasibility, and modularity by distinguishing strong, weak, and monotonic compliance. From a legal perspective, it has shown potential to enhance transparency in evidence-based decision-making and supports the traceability of knowledge bases underpinning system development, as illustrated by the use case from Regulation EC 261/2004.

Conclusions: The proposed approach enables compliance checking against high-level and non-functional requirements, showing potential to distinguish among compliant behaviors and increase goal satisfaction traceability compared to rule-based conformance methods.