Co-Design of Business and IT Services – a Tool-Supported Approach

Service modeling is an important step in designing service-oriented systems. There are multiple levels of design because service sci-ence includes both the business rationale and the IT implementation ofthe services. As business and IT perspectives differ, the modeling tech-niques are different, and often the respective modeling languages aredisconnected or ad-hoc. We propose a new service-modeling approachfor connecting the business modeling and the web service modeling bypresenting these two perspectives in a single model. We present a multi-stage modeling process for capturing different perspectives and creatingmodels iteratively by working with levels of abstraction from higher tolower. The model is then used as an input in order to generate a RESTAPI specification in the OpenAPI format to feed the next stages of theservice life-cycle.

The Value of Roles in Modeling Business Processes

Pavel Balabko, Nicolas Clément, Alain Wegmann

Rapid business changes require companies to make rapid changes in business processes and ultimately in BPS systems. These changes can be done rapidly if business modelers understand the base roles of business processes and relationships between these roles. In this paper we present an alternative to the traditional business processes modeling approaches. In our approach we make explicit roles present in business processes. This facilitates business process reengineering and improves the alignment between business and supporting systems.

2004

From Business Services to IT Services by Capturing Design Decisions

Claude Petitpierre, Alain Wegmann

The main goals of any service-oriented design include flexible support and adaptability of business services and improved business-IT alignment. The existing approaches, however, have failed to fully meet these goals. One of the major reasons for this deficiency is the gap that exists between how the computer science and management science communities perceive the concept of service. We present a flexible, semi-automatic, model-driven approach to designing IT services that directly satisfy business needs and requirements. We begin with the design of business services and the capture of the design decisions that transform the business design through multiple model layers to the IT service design. All layers can be simulated using the Alloy Analyzer tool. The last layer can be run on a given target platform. This approach is demonstrated on the running example based on the consulting project conducted at the company General Ressort. The central aspect of our approach is separating the design decisions from anything that can be automated. It provides the multi-perspective view of the system, by making the modeling process faster, leaving the designer the space to focus on the design decisions and not on drawing the models.

2012

Designing modeling notations readers understand

George Popescu

[Context] IT modelers create models to communicate their conceptualization of an organization and to facilitate the collaboration between business and IT people. The story they convey in their models is how the corporate IT systems fulfill the business peopleâs needs. The business people who must validate these models often have no IT background. Therefore, IT modelers need to create models that non-IT individuals understand. [Motivation and Problem] We explore the understanding of models created with IT notations by non-IT individuals. We enable IT modelers to create models such that non-IT readers can understand. We also enable IT notation designers to design notations that help modelers to create models that non-IT readers can understand. [Idea and Results] We perform an explorative qualitative case-study for two modeling notations, SEAM and i*, by using two cases: car-maintenance service and meeting scheduler, in order to investigate how readers interpret models. Readers evaluate our models and identify the elements that are difficult to comprehend. We create improved models by making these elements easier to comprehend, so that readers understand the modelerâs story. We reduce the misalignment between the modelerâs story and the readersâ perceptions of this story. We improve models without changing the identity of the underlying notation. [Contributions] Our contributions address modelers and designers of IT notations. For IT modelers, such as IT architects, service designers, and consultants, using IT notations (e.g., UML, BPMN, ArchiMate), this research provides the means necessary to create models so that readers, unfamiliar with the notation, understand. We recommend to modelers to model: (i) the relation with reality, by focusing on the readersâ conceptualizations, (ii) the rationale, by using the questions, options, criteria and their assessment, and (iii) the story, by using story-phases: context, conflict, climax and closure. In addition, we provide them with a modeling process for creating models. For designers of IT notations, this research provides the means necessary to design notations. We recommend to designers to design: (i) the relation with reality, by identifying implicit elements in the modeling notation by evaluating readersâ understanding of what elements represent, (ii) the rationale, by using visual cues to guide readersâ understanding of the problem, and (iii) the story, by creating models in which different stories are told to elicit readersâ understanding of what happens in the model. In addition, we provide them with a design process for designing notations.

EPFL2016

Designing modeling notations readers understand

George Popescu

EPFL2016