I guess the requirement "Citibank customers are not allowed to die" was not written down in the section specification....It surely was a wrong model, but the interesting question is how did this come about?
My guess is that it was written down, then deleted by the Marketing Department...bad press and all that..
PS: How do you guys make the [snip] thing appear?
The point is: I model the world first, then the industry, then the enterprise, then the processes.
I follow a similar approach, but I model the company's
Charter (explains how the company is like others of its type), then
Mission (explains how they are different from the others), then
Goals (strategic steps to executing the Mission), then
Organizational Structure (how they divide their labor in to distinct tasks, and achieve coordination among them), then
Policy (their guidelines for making decisions), then
Procedures (ways of achieving results or making decisions), then
Rules (which are substitutions for thinking).
Environment is analyzed in parallel with these as it provides: needed resources, cultural influences, regulatory control, and product markets.
Problems & Opportunities are analyzed in terms of
Actuals &
Should bes, the
variances between them, the
forces creating the variances, and
who cares enough about them to
sponsor & participate in a project to do something about them. A dose of additional stakeholders and their inputs and I'm ready to
start my design. The new/enhanced MIS then becomes a tool for removing the variance in the problem/opportunity model.
I rarely tell a client I'm developing a UML model; creates too much anxiety on their part. I just stand at a White-board as we talk about their domain and make my notes thereon in UML. With a simple explanation of an element, as I introduce it in my diagram, my diagram becomes an
Icon I can use in my documentation that, for them, triggers a remembrance of our conversations and the conclusions arrived at therein. Gradually, and without knowing it, they learn UML.
In the
back-room, I go through a process of abstraction and revision to get a correct O-O form. This drives out more questions and finally a revised model that can be used for a
this is what I understand you are saying meeting. It is kind of a
bottom-up, top-down modeling approach in what is essentially
top-down, bottom-up software development process.
Sorry...This thread hit one of my
hot buttons and got me to pontificating a bit
