UML-BUSINESS-PROFILE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

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UML-BUSINESS-PROFILE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN
ITERATIVE AND INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

• Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric
• bdrazen_at_etfbl.net ms_at_etfbl.net
• Faculty of Electrical Engineering Banja Luka

4th Workshop Software Engineering Education and
Reverse Engineering Zagreb, 06-10.09.2004.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko MaricUML-BUSINESS-PROFILE
-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

• This presentation includes
• review of present business modeling techniques
  based on UML
• standard UML,
• UML extensions,
• UML business profile.
• one proposal for UML-business-profile-based
  business modeling
• business use case model exterior view to
  business domain
• business use case diagrams,
• textual description of business use cases,
• high level business activity diagrams.
• business object model interior view to business
  domain
• detailed business activity diagrams,
• business sequence diagrams,
• business object diagrams.
• static aspect of business modeling in
  iterative-incremental software development,
• dynamic aspect of business modeling in
  iterative-incremental software development.

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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business modeling

• Business systems
• complex (sometimes large-scale) systems that
  offer to customers/users desired
  products/services.
• they are characterized by appropriate
  organizational structure and business processes
  to satisfy customers/users .
• Business process - specific sequence of
  spatio-temporal activities which has begin and
  end, as well as clearly defined goal, inputs and
  outputs.
• Organizational structure mutual connectivity
  of human and material resources required for
  successful business process realization.
• Business domain
• totality consists of customers/users,
  organizational structure and business processes
  in particular business system
• Business modeling
• discipline that deals with modeling of business
  domain
• Business model
• abstraction of business system parts and their
  relationships
• authors focus on Business Process Modelling BPM

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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business modeling (continued)

• Motives for business modeling
• better understanding of key concepts in present
  business processes,
• base for information system development,
• base for improvement of present business
  structure and organization,
• presentation of proposed reconstruction in
  present business processes,
• experimental check through different types of
  simulation...
• Goals of business modeling
• Business Process Improvement - BPI,
• Business Process Reengineering - BPR.
• Types of business modeling
• modeling of present state - "as-is" model,
• modeling of proposed state - "to-be" model.

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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business modeling (continued)

• Complete business model
• view in business domain from different
  perspectives,
• its result of different aspects of analysis in
  business domain each view is represented with
  single or more different diagrams
• aspects of analysis
• concept
• the highest apstraction level view of the
  business domain where the problems are ilustrated
  and the goal system architecture is described
• structure
• organizational structure of business system
• process
• business activities in the system
• behaviour
• interactions between resources workers and
  objects
• Business model structure
• unique model (Penker, Eriksson),
• two models (UML standard).

Fig. 1. Aspects of business domain analysis.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business modeling (continued)

• Business modeling role in information system
  development
• usually prephase or first phase in IS development
  (eg. RUP)
• business model
• is used for system requirements identification,
• serves for identification of the most suitable IS
  architecture for the particular business domain
• Business modeling tasks
• During business modeling we must identify
• processes and activities in particular processes,
  
• actors,
• process initiators,
• process goals and results,
• required resources (human, material and
  nonmaterial),
• process rules and constraints,
• automatization level of present processes,
• responsibilities for particular activities,
• possibilities that some alternate activities can
  be chosen,
• manners for efficiency improvement and augment in
  present processes, etc.

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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
UML

• UML is graphic language for visualization,
  specification, design and documenting of software
  systems, but nonsoftware systems too.
• UML has rich notation and semantics thanks to
  totality of the best engineering techniques
  (Booch, OMT, OOSE) which are successfully proved
  in modeling large-scale and complex systems, as
  well as it offers possibilities to use and
  integrate different concepts of IS analysis and
  design.
• leading modeling language (implemented in many
  CASE tools),
• de facto industrial standard for software
  modeling (ISO ?)
• standard UML is open system its possible to
• extend base concept with user extensions, or
• specialize base concept in particular domain by
  introducing profile.

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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
UML and business modeling
UML (industrial standard)

business modeling (first phase in IS development)
language for business modeling

• PRO
• during the whole cycle of IS development, from
  business modeling to software implementation and
  transition in business domain, harmonized
  notation will be used
• transition from business models to system UML
  models will be easier
• possibilities for extending, adopting and
  specialization of standard UML

• CONTRA
• too rich OO notation (not optimal and not
  adequate for business modeling)
• traditional techniques and notations are more
  popular
• there is no standard for business modeling based
  on UML
• standard UML,
• UML extensions,
• UML profile.

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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
BM based on standard UML

• too rich OO notation, not optimal and not
  adequate for business modeling
• combination with other approaches and notations,
  such as IDEF, etc.
• Example integration of business models and
  system UML models within Popkin Software based on
  hierarchical decomposition to elementary
  processes which are transferred to system use
  cases
• Advantages hierarchical decomposition which
  solves complexity problems.
• Disadvantages heterogeneous and not harmonized
  notation, impossible to deal with resources,
  decisions, as well as it is static system model.

Fig. 2. Integration of business model and system
UML model.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
BM based on UML extensions

• UML extensions are mechanisms for extending base
  UML concept to be possible specific details
  modeling without changing entire language.
• Extension can be realized by using stereotypes,
  tagged values and constraints.
• Several extensions for business modeling has been
  realized because there is no standard for
  business modeling based on UML, such as
  Eriksson-Penker, McLeod, etc.., but neither
  extension didnt solve problems of use UML for
  business modeling.
• Eriksson-Penker extension
• The most important set of extensions

Fig. 3. Generic example of business model
according to Eriksson-Penker extension.
Fig. 4. Implementation of business process.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
UML business profile

• Profile - defined set of standard language
  extensions which is built in UML and specialized
  for modeling in particular domain.
• Business profile (v1.3) specializes some base
  classes of standard UML by introduction of
  business domain specific classes.
• Business model two models
• business use case model
• represents outside view of business system and
  describes business system and its relationships
  with the exterior systems through the business
  use cases
• business object model
• represents inside view of business system and in
  the completeness shows process, procedures,
  business worker's behaviour, used resources -
  business objects, and their relationships and
  organization, that goals can be realized and
  expected results achieved

Fig. 5. Business model defined by UML business
profile.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business use case model

• Outside view of business system which describes
  business system and its relationships with the
  exterior systems through the business use cases.
• Business use case is the business process, or
  some concrete function in business system offered
  to the exterior systems. Those exterior systems
  are called business actors. Business use case is
  the sequence of actions, preformed by workers in
  business system, and by them business system
  makes some concrete and recognable value.
• Business use case model contains descriptions of
  business actors and business use cases, and their
  interactions too. We represent that by business
  use case diagrams.
• Business use case model also contains realization
  descriptions of identified business use cases. We
  can document realization
• textually, and
• graphically (high level sequence diagram or
• activity diagram)

Fig. 6. Generic example of UC diagram.
Fig. 7. Generic example of high-level activity
diagram.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business object model

• Inside view of business system and in the
  completeness shows process, procedures, business
  worker's behaviour, used resources - business
  objects, and their relationships and
  organization, that goals can be realized and
  expected results achieved
• Business object model includes
• detailed activity diagrams,
• interaction diagrams, and
• object diagrams.
• Detailed activity diagram
• high level activity diagram completed by workers'
  responsibilities, used objects and object flows
• Responsibility areas of involved workers are
  emphasized by swimlanes
• activity diagram is procedurally (algorithmic)
  oriented and it is not appropriate for OO
  analysis and design

Fig. 8. Generic example of detailed activity
diagram.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Business object model (continued)

• business object model also includes some of OO
  interaction diagrams
• collaboration diagram
• focus on structural component of process
• sequence diagram
• focus on temporal component of process
• messages between classes can be easy mapped
  in the responsibilities (methods) during the
  development of system class diagram

business object model includes business object
diagram shows the static structure and
relationships between objects can be
used to show organizational structure of
business system
Fig. 10. Generic example of object diagram.
Fig. 9. Generic example of sequence diagram.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
RUP iterative and incremental approach

• Today, integral IS development in "one breath"
  according to the traditional waterfall model in
  one pass, from domain analysis to implementation
  in real world is impossible and actually
  unimaginable
• An iterative approach is necessary that in
  sequence of iterations, better domain
  understanding will be achieved and risk reduced,
  what incrementally leads to goal system. As an
  example of well structured iterative and
  incremental process, which found wide
  application in SE practice, we often take the
  RUP.

RUP has two dimensions structural dimension,
or static aspect of process represented by
activities, resources and artifacts temporal
dimension, or dynamic aspect of
process represented by phases, iterations,
cycles
Fig. 11. Technical perspective of RUP.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Static aspect of business modeling
Business use case model
Business object model
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Static aspect of business modeling (continued)

• Large-scale systems
• great number of heterogeneous business use cases
  can be identified, often more than several
  hundreds, sometimes more than thousand.
• In order to get better picture of whole system
  and solve the problem of visualisation
  complexity, all those business use cases can be
  grouped in higher level abstraction
• business use case package
• consists of some business use cases and
  appropriate relations
• business use case system
• contain more business use case packages,
  single business use cases and appropriate
  relations

Fig. 12. Transition from business models to
system models.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Static aspect of business modeling (continued)

• Transition from business models to system models
• Identified business use cases, business actors,
  business workers and business objects can be used
  in transition from business models to initial
  system models. Business use case model is
  transferred in the system use case model, and
  business object model is transferred in the
  system design model.
• Next rules are valid during transition from
  business use case model to system use case model
• each business UC is candidate for system UC,
• each business actor is possible system actor,
• each worker is possible system actor.
• During the transition of business object model
  next rules are valid
• each identified entity (worker or business
  object) is possible system class, and
• each message in sequence diagram is possible
  member function (method) of system class.

Fig. 13. Transition from business models to
system models.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Dynamic aspect of business modeling

• IS lifecycle isn't an integral process, but
  process divided into more cycles, where each
  cycle deals with the new product generation.
  Development cycle consists of four phases
  inception, elaboration, construction and
  transition. Each phase ends at the point where
  some great decision must be done, or some great
  goal(s) achieved. Those points we call
  milestones.

• INCEPTION
• Inception phase requests from business modeling
  that makes adequate base for the specification of
  functional and non-functional system
  requirements.
• All exterior entities (business actors) and
  business use cases must be identified, and nature
  of their interactions high-level-described.
  Business use case model must be realized in
  completeness.
• Inception phase can be done in one iteration (so
  called preliminary iteration). However, in case
  of the large scale systems it is recommended to
  preform business modeling in several iterations
  one subsystem per iteration. Dependent on the
  team dimension and experience, iterations can be
  parallely preformed

Fig. 14. Business model in inception phase.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Dynamic aspect of business modeling (continued)

• ELABORATION
• In elaboration phase, realized business object
  model is required from business modeling
  workflow.
• For all business use cases we must realize
  detailed activity diagrams as base for analysis
  and design.
• Based on activity diagrams we generate sequence
  diagrams and object diagrams.
• Business model is here finished with more than
  90 of completeness.
• Usually, elaboration phase is preformed through
  several iterations, especially in the case of
  large-scale business systems subsystem by
  subsystem one subsystem per iteration.
  Dependent on the team dimension and experience,
  iterations can be parallely preformed.

Fig. 15. Business model in elaboration phase.
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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Dynamic aspect of business modeling (continued)

• CONSTRUCTION
• All features of goal system are realized,
  integrated in system and checked in details.
  Stress is put on resource management to optimise
  expenses and prize, quality and performances,
  etc. Many projects are enough large-scale so many
  activities can be parallel preformed and in this
  manner we can improve and accelerate the
  realization of new product versions, but that can
  also augment the complexity of resource
  management and activity synchronization.
• At the end of this phase, product must be ready
  for the customer, actually "beta" version. This
  at least means that product is implemented on
  appropriate platform, and also written
  documentation and user manual are required.
  Evaluation criteria is stability of beta-version
  in real world in particular business system.
• Only some specific processes remain for business
  modeling workflow processes with some errors
  detected during the past iterations.
• TRANSITION
• transfer from "labs" to real business system.
  Only fine tuning remains, as well as generating
  newer product versions and users training.
• This is the last phase in the IS development and
  it doesn't contain business modeling activities.

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Dražen Brdanin, Slavko Maric UML-BUSINESS-PROFI
LE-BASED BUSINESS MODELING IN ITERATIVE AND
INCREMENTAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Conclusion

• Although primary intended for visual modeling of
  software systems, thanks to business profile, UML
  can be successfully used for business modeling
  too, because of very rich notation and semantics
  offer possibilities for all business domain
  analysis' aspects.
• UML based business modeling has especial
  importance if it's base for IS development. Then,
  notations for business modeling and system
  modeling are harmonized, and used concepts offer
  possibilities for easy transfer business models
  to system UML models.
• Described approach is fully integrated in
  iterative-incremental model of software
  development, so thanks to the advantages of
  business modeling based on UML business profile,
  advantages of iterative-incremental approach are
  additionally augment, such as high risk parts
  are discovered earlier and their elimination is
  easier, business process reengineering and system
  changes are easier to be realized, project team
  more and faster learns thanks to iterative
  approach and generally, level of quality is
  increased too.