Guidelines: Important Decisions in Business Modeling
Topics
- Decide How to Perform the Workflow
- Decide How to Use Artifacts
- Decide Which Reports to Use
- Decide How to Review Artifacts
Decide How to Perform the Workflow 
The following decisions should be made regarding the business modeling workflow:
- Decide how to perform the workflow by looking at the Business Modeling: Workflow Details. There are several ways to perform the business modeling workflow, as described in Concepts: Scope of Business Modeling. Decide which of the scenarios you will follow and document the decision in the development case in the "Business Modeling" section, under the heading titled "Workflow". The Artifact: Target-Organization Assessment describes the current status of the organization in which the system is deployed. It serves as input when you decide how to perform the business modeling workflow.
- Decide which parts of the Business Modeling workflow to perform. For example, you can decide to just introduce the Workflow Detail: Develop Domain Model, if the project only need a business object model, focusing on explaining products, deliverables, or events that are important to the business domain.
- Decide when, during the project lifecycle, to introduce each part of the workflow. As a general rule the business modeling workflow should be introduce early in the project.
Notice that you often need to do Workflow Detail: Assess Business Status, before you are ready to make decisions on how to use the Business Modeling workflow.
Document the decisions in the section "Core Workflows / Business Modeling / Workflow", in the Development Case.
Decide How to Use Artifacts
Decide on which artifacts to use and how to use each of them. This depends entirely on how you decided to do business modeling. The table below describes those artifacts you must have and those used in some cases. For more detailed information on how to tailor each artifact, and a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of that specific artifact, read the section titled "Tailoring" for each artifact.
For each artifact, decide how the artifact will be used: Must have, Should have, Could have or Won't have. For more details, see the Guidelines: Classifying Artifacts.
| Artifact | Brief Tailoring Comments (see the artifact for details) |
| Business Actor | Must
have if you do business reengineering or business improvement.
Could have if you only want to chart an existing organization. Won't have if you do domain modeling. |
| Business Architecture Document | Must
have if you do business reengineering or business improvement.
Won't have if you do domain modeling or want to chart an existing organization. |
| Business Entity | Must have if you decide to do any business modeling. |
| Business Glossary | Should have. |
| Business Object Model | Must have if you decide to do any business modeling. |
| Business Rules | Could have. |
| Business Use Case | Must
have if you do business reengineering or business improvement.
Could have if you only want to chart and existing organization. Won't have if you do domain modeling. |
| Business Use-Case Model | See Business Use Case. |
| Business Use-Case Realization | See Business Use Case. |
| Business Vision | Must
have if you do business reengineering or business improvement.
Won't have if you do domain modeling or only want to chart an existing organization. |
| Business Worker | Must
have if you do business reengineering or business improvement, and if you want to
chart the existing organization.
Won't have if you do domain modeling. |
| Organization Unit | Should have. |
| Supplementary Business Specification | Should have. |
| Must
have if you do business reengineering or business improvement.
Won't have if you do domain modeling or want to chart an existing organization. |
Tailor each artifact by performing the steps described in "Tailor Artifacts per Workflow" in the Activity: Develop Development Case.
Decide Which Reports to Use
Decide on which reports to use:
- Report: Business Use-Case
- Report: Business Use-Case Model Survey
- Report: Business Object Model Survey
- Report: Business Use-Case Realization
- Report: Business Entity
- Report: Business Worker
These are described in more detail in Report Overview.
Decide How to Review Artifacts
Decide on how to review each artifact and how to capture the review level in the Development Case. For more details, see Guidelines: Review Levels.
