Jelena Zdravkovic

Capability Driven Development - an Approach to Support Evolving Organizations

The need for organizations to operate in changing environments is addressed by proposing an approach that integrates organizational development with information system (IS) development taking into account changes in the application context of the solution – Capability Driven Development (CDD). A meta-model for representing business and IS designs consisting of goals, key performance indicators, capabilities, context and capability delivery patterns, is been proposed. The use of the meta-model is exemplified by a case from the energy efficiency domain. A number of issues related to use of the CDD approach, namely, capability delivery application, CDD methodology, and tool support also are discussed.

Aligning Goals and Services through Goal and Business Modelling

E-services are used as the cornerstones for modelling interaction points of cooperating IT systems, within and between enterprises. So far, research and development of e-services have mainly focused on an operational perspective, such as the development of standards for message exchanges and service coordination. However, on a strategic level, the success of e-services depends on their ability to work as a medium for the exchange of business values. In this paper, we present an approach that utilizes goal and business models as the foundation for designing e-services. The approach can be used to ensure that the developed e-services support the desired goals and business values of involved actors. A case study from the Swedish health care sector is used to ground and apply the presented approach.

Modeling business capabilities and context dependent delivery by cloud services

Contemporary business environments are changing rapidly, organizations are global, and cloud-based services have become a norm. Enterprises operating in these conditions need to have the capability to deliver their business in a variety of business contexts. Capability delivery thus has to be monitored and adjusted. Current Enterprise Modeling approaches do not address context-dependent capability design and do not explicitly support runtime adjustments. To address this challenge, a capability-driven approach is proposed to model business capabilities by using EM techniques, and to use model-based patterns to describe how software applications can adhere to changes in the execution context. A meta-model for capability design and delivery is presented with the consideration to delivering solutions as cloud services. The proposal is illustrated with an example case from an energy efficiency project. A supporting architecture for the capability development and the delivery in the cloud is also presented.

Service-based processes: design for business and technology

Composition of software services is a fundamental part in supporting enterprise business processes. Designed properly, executable processes can be used to closely support business processes by the integration of existing software services. In order to support business processes the design of the executable process must closely follow the business events and activities, as perceived by business actors. However, the design must also consider technical issues such as limitations in existing technology and systs. In this paper we examine how technical syst constraints influence the realization of business processes. Based on this examination we present a set of realization types that describes the transformation from a business process into its realization as an executable process. We also propose design criteria that need to be adhered to in order to cater to both business and technical needs.

Value and Goal Driven Design of E-Services

E-services are used as the cornerstones for modeling interaction points of cooperating IT systems, within and between enterprises. So far, research and development of e-services have mainly focused on an operational perspective, such as the development of standards for message exchanges and service coordination. However, on a strategic level, the success of e-services depends on its ability to work as a catalyst for the business values that are being exchanged. In this paper, we present an approach that utilize value and goal models as the foundation for designing e-services. The approach can be used to strategically ensure that the developed e-services support the desired business values for involved actors. A case study from the Swedish health sector is used to ground and apply the presented approach.

Bringing Enterprise Modeling Closer to Model-Driven Development

Enterprise Modeling (EM) provides the means for using models to represent organizational knowledge from different perspectives. When information systems (IS) are involved, Model-Driven Development (MDD) is an approach that focuses on the use of models as primary development artifacts. By observing that EM provides the context for high level requirements, which in turn are the input to MDD, we propose a meta-model that integrates enterprise models and requirements with design models in MDD. The meta-model defines six models that cover both organizational and IS development knowledge. Inter-model relationships ensure an integrated view of the enterprise and the supporting IS by allowing model components to be used across different models. The integrated meta-model is demonstrated through an example case study.

A Goal-oriented Approach for Business Process Improvement Using Process Warehouse Data

In a process-oriented enterprise management, process optimization focuses on studying and evaluating existing processes, such as utilization of resources and identification of problems in the process flow and functionality, for facilitating potential improvements. Conventional data warehouses do not provide information necessary for studying processes, such as executed process activities, utilized resources, or control-flow. Thereby, decisions on process improvements either cannot be taken, or they are taken without complete information. Additionally, process improvements methods commonly suffer from a number of limitations with respect to their complexity, efficiency and degree of automation. In this study, we consider process-oriented data warehouses and thereby we identify the information required from such awarehouse, to facilitate a semi-automatic method for improving processes, starting from established business goals toward concrete decisions. A case study from the Swedish health care sector is used to ground and illustrate the presented method.

Modeling business strategy: A meta-model of strategy maps and balanced scorecards

Business strategy is aimed to support the vision of an enterprise, by paving the way to achieve it through goals that direct the strategys execution. However, there is a lack of means to establish and assess the alignment of business strategy and goal oriented requirements engineering. The objective of our ongoing research is to model business strategy in order to establish well-defined and traceable links with system requirements. In this paper, we propose a business strategy meta-model for Strategy maps and Balanced Scorecards. The validity of the meta-model is tested through a case scenario using OWL and Telos.

Requirements Engineering for Capability Driven Development

Lately, the notion of capability has emerged in IS engineering as an instrument to context dependent design and delivery of business services. Representing core business functionalities of an organization, capabilities, and capability driven IS development can be seen as both – a shift beyond and complement to the widely established service-oriented engineering paradigm where needs of customers form the leading modeling and design perspective. To ensure the needs of business stakeholders for variety of business contexts that an organization faces, and thus facilitate successful systems delivery, capability- driven development needs a well-defined method for requirements engineering, as well as its confirmation in practices. In this paper a process for specifying requirements capabilities and their designs is proposed. An application of the proposed approach to the area of business process outsourcing (BPO) services is carried out for the German company SIV.

Modeling Business Strategy: A Consumer Value Perspective

Business strategy lays out the plan of an enterprise to achieve its vision by providing value to its customers. Typically, business strategy focuses on economic value and its relevant exchanges with customers and does not directly address consumer values. However, consumer values drive customers’ choices and decisions to use a product or service, and therefore should have a direct impact on business strategy. This paper explores whether and how consumer values influence business strategy, and how they might be linked to IS solutions that support the implementation of such strategies. To address these questions, the study maps consumer values to a business strategy approach via a meta-model commonly used for such purposes, based on strategy maps and balanced scorecards (SMBSC). Additionally, the applicability of the mappings is illustrated via a case scenario where the mappings are applied and the business strategy conceptualization captures them. Finally, based on these mappings, high level guidelines for linking consumer values to requirements for the development of IS solutions through business strategy conceptualization are proposed.