Engineering organisation-oriented software

The conventional ways of building software are accepted to produce rigid systems that impede the processes of change typical for contemporary organisations. In this paper, we propose that software can be made more adaptable and tuned to the needs of changing organisations, if it is built using organisation-inspired principles and software structures such as Virtual Organisations, roles and norms. Agent-based software engineering is already using these principles, and we extend the state of the art in that domain by proposing an "open systems" approach, where agents can join and leave Virtual Organisations at will, taking on different roles as needed. Reasoning on organisational roles and norms is facilitated by formalised contract templates and automatic conflict resolution strategies. In terms of overall lifecycle, a system is initiated to satisfy a set of formalised requirements. Agents respond to bids for joining a Virtual Organisation, where each bid is for a contract-based coalition. In this paper, we describe our approach and outline a set of research challenges.