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Using Software Engineering Techniques for Business Modeling

One of the major advantages of using a modeling technique for business modeling that is similar to a technique for software engineering is that you are speaking the same language. It facilitates understanding how something described in the business domain might relate to something belonging in the software domain. It also simplifies describing the relationships between and among artifacts in business models and corresponding artifacts in system models.

Historically, we have seen that modeling techniques developed and matured in the software domain inspire new ways of visualizing an organization. Because object-oriented visual modeling techniques are common for new software projects, using similar techniques in the business domain comes naturally. ^[1]

^[1] This idea originated in the book by Ivar Jacobson, Maria Ericsson, and Agneta Jacobson, The Object Advantage: Business Process Re-engineering with Object Technology . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1995.

Our notation for business modeling can be summarized as follows (see Figure 8-1):

• Business users (customers, vendors , or partners ) are represented by business actors.

• Business processes are represented by business use cases and business use-case realizations. They refer to business goals, and business rules.

• The roles people play in an organization are represented by business workers.

• The "things" an organization manages or produces are represented by business entities, business events, organized in business systems.