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 discipline's workflow:
- Decide how to perform the workflow by looking at the Business Modeling: Workflow. 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, under the Disciplines, 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 what parts of the Business Modeling workflow details to perform. For example, you can decide to just introduce the Workflow Detail: Develop a Domain Model if the project only needs a business analysis 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 introduced 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 Development Case, under the headings Disciplines, Business Modeling, Workflow.
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.
Could 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 Event | Must have if you are automating business processes or decide to do domain modeling. |
| Business Goal | Must have if you do business reengineering or business improvement.
Won't have if you do domain modeling. |
| Business Glossary | Should have. |
| Business Analysis Model | Must have if you decide to do any business modeling. |
| Business Rule | Could have. |
| Business System | Could have if you have a very large and complex business model. |
| 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. |
| 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 Discipline" 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 Analysis Model Survey
- Report: Business Use Case Realization
- Report: Business Entity
- Report: Business Worker
- Report: Business Rules Survey
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.
