Task: Identify Preliminary Role Model
Task sourced from Gaia
Purpose
The purpose of this task is to identify the "basic skills"  or preliminary roles that are required by the organization to achieve its goals.
Relationships
RolesPrimary Performer: Additional Performers:
InputsMandatory:
    		Optional:
    • None
    Outputs
      Process Usage
      Main Description

      This task consists of identifying the basic skills required by the organization. The preliminary model produced during this task contains only those roles, possibly not completely defined, that can be identified without committing to the imposition of a specific organizational structure (Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology, p. 335). 

      Roles should be described in terms of role permissions and role responsabilities. Role responsabilities are described using liveness and safety rules. Liveness rules define how the dynamics of the organization should evolve over time while safety rules define time-independent global invariants for the organization that must be respected.

      See Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology  for more information about this task.

      Steps
      Identifying roles
      Identify the preliminary roles that will take part into the MAS organizaiton(s).
      Outlining resources permissions for roles
      Identify the resources that can legitimately be used to carry out the role. Intuitively, they say what can be spent while carrying out the role
      Stating role resources limits permissions
      State the resource limits within which role must operate.
      Outlining role responsabilities as liveness properties
      Liveness properties define how the dynamics of the organization should evolve over time.
      Outlining role responsabilities as safety properties
      Safety properties define time-independent global invariants for the organization that must be respected.
      Key Considerations
      Roles identification may even be facilitated if a goal oriented early requirements analysis  has already modeled the characteristics of the system in terms of actors involved and their goals. (see Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology p. 341).
      More Information
      Supporting Materials
      Whitepapers