Experimental evaluation of HoRIM to improve business strategy models

Aligning organizational goals and strategies is important in Business Process Management (BPM). The Horizontal Relation Identification Method (HoRIM), which is our extension of the GQM+Strategies framework, improves the strategic alignment between organizations. GQM+Strategies aligns the strategies across organizational units at different levels by a strategy model, which is a tree structure of strategies called a GQM+Strategies grid. HoRIM identifies and handles horizontal relations (e.g., conflicting and similar strategies) between strategies in different branches, but we have yet to adequately inspect the impact of HoRIM on identifying correct horizontal relations and improving grids. This lack of clarity hampers the application of HoRIM to industrial business strategy models. Herein, we evaluate the impact of HoRIM on the review process and the improvement process of GQM+Strategies grids using two experiments. The review experiment confirms that HoRIM identifies about 1.5 more horizontal relations than an ad hoc review. The modification experiment where four researchers evaluated the validity of improved grids by the ranking method suggests that HoRIM effectively modifies GQM+Strategies grids.