The intention of (business) modeling?
Some thoughts on business modeling and what distinguishes a concept model from a flow model. I will also describe some other models and expressions that are good to keep in mind when working with IT architecture.
The intention of (business) modeling?
Business modeling tries to describe the basis for how an organization delivers, creates, and captures the different forms of value. For example, economic, social, and spirit forms of value.
What distinguishes a concept model from a flow model?
The conceptual model must explain the terms and meaning of the concepts in a formal language, by describing their connection with other concepts. The concept model is a prerequisite for one unambiguous interpretation made of business models, policy documents, and regulations of different departments within the organization. A Flow Model captures different aspects of a business process, describing different types of flows.
You try to show different flows by dividing them in order (control flow), or between different activities (data flow) and which resources are to perform responsible for activities (resource flow). What distinguishes the two is that the conceptual model describes terms and meaning but a flow model describes flows where you divide activities and who is responsible for what.
What is meant by a business process?
A business process is a well-defined set of recurring and interconnected activities performed in a certain logical order within a company to satisfy a customer's need. For example, a business system for order-stock-invoicing.
Architecture description
I will now try to describe the three main uses for one architecture description.
To explain with the help of architecture description what components and functions in a system work as well as how they are integrated with each other.
To use architectural descriptions to describe how different standards, principles, and guidelines are created good quality in the system.
To use architecture description to show how to get a more efficient IT environment with a lower cost of support and maintenance, reduced complexity in the system, and increase the understanding of critical functions of the system.
Hope this clears up some question marks…
