Archives: Templates

Templates and model types in the QualiWare platform.

Requirement

A Requirement is a prioritized demand placed on the project by one of its interested parties. Often it is the buyer the user or the management that have Requirements to the scope or results of the projects. But it can also technical requirements that appears because of constraints in the physical equipment or the algorithmic solutions chosen.

It is recommended to build a Requirement hierarchy by relating one Requirement to the sub requirements that composes it.

Requirement can be modelled in a Requirement Model.

Requirement:Archimate

In the end, a business goal must be realized by a plan or concrete change goal, which may or may not require a new system or changes to an existing system.

The term “system” is used in its general meaning; i.e., as a group of (functionally) related elements, where each element may be considered as a system again. Therefore, a system may refer to any active structural element, behavior element, or passive structural element of some organization, such as a business actor, application component, business process, application service, business object, or data object.

Requirements model the properties of these elements that are needed to achieve the “ends” that are modeled by the goals. In this respect, requirements represent the “means” to realize goals.
During the design process, goals may be decomposed until the resulting sub-goals are sufficiently detailed to enable their realization by properties that can be exhibited by systems. At this point, goals can be realized by requirements that demand these properties from the systems.
For example, one may identify two alternative requirements to realize the goal to improve portfolio management:

  • By assigning a personal assistant to each customer, or
  • By introducing online portfolio management

The former requirement can be realized by a human actor and the latter by a software application. These requirements can be decomposed further to define the requirements on the human actor and the software application in more detail.

Resource:Archimate

Resources are a central concept in the field of strategic management, economics, computer science, portfolio management, and more. They are often considered, together with capabilities, to be sources of competitive advantage for organizations. Resources are analyzed in terms of strengths and weaknesses, and they are considered when implementing strategies. Due to resources being limited, they can often be a deciding factor for choosing which strategy, goal, and project to implement and in which order. Resources can be classified into tangible assets – financial assets (e.g., cash, securities, borrowing capacity), physical assets (e.g., plant, equipment, land, mineral reserves), intangible assets (technology; e.g., patents, copyrights, trade secrets; reputation; e.g., brand, relationships; culture), and human assets (skills/know-how, capacity for communication and collaboration, motivation). Resources are realized by active and passive structure elements. The name of a resource should preferably be a noun.

Responsibility

Responsibility refers to the assignment of tasks or duties to specific individuals or teams within a larger system or organization. Responsibility can include a range of activities, such as decision-making, task completion, quality assurance, or management.

Arrows or lines may be used to show the relationships and connections between these components. For example, a line might connect a manager to a team to represent how the manager is responsible for overseeing the work of the team. Similarly, a line might connect a team to a task to represent how the team is responsible for completing the task.

Result

A result is a collection of components which are to be produced during a specific project. With the result entity a description of the result is created and links to the tools that are used to produce the result are made. When the links to the tools (e.g. different diagram types or external applications) are made, a double click with the mouse on the result symbol in the Work Model will make the tools accessible to the user through a menu.

The Result object is also available on the diagram type Work Breakdown Structure, where it is used to calculate the cost of a specific project, during the early stages of the project lifecycle. The calculation is based on the principles of “successive calculation” as described in the “Implementation Guide”. When the this approach is used, the project is seen from the project deliverable view point rather than work procedure view point as it is the case with the Work Model approach. A Result will therefore tend to take the role of a work package, aggregating the result and the activities that need to be performed to produce the result. A Result in this situation can be of both material and non material form. This approach is well known from project management theory.

Role

The Role object can be used to represent the different parts of an organization that are involved in a specific process or workflow. For example, in a customer journey map, a role might represent the customer service team, while in a work flow diagram, a role might represent a marketing team.

By defining roles in a diagram, organizations can ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of their responsibilities and that the right individuals or teams are involved in the right activities at the right time. This can help to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the organization and to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals.

Overall, roles play a critical role in helping organizations to align their goals, improve their processes, and ensure that everyone is working together towards a common vision.

Sequence Flow

A Sequence Flow is used to show the order that activities will be performed in a Process. Each Flow has only one source and only one target. The source and target must be from the set of the following Flow Objects: Events (Start, Intermediate, and End), Activities (Task and Sub-Process), and Gateways. During performance (or simulation) of the process, a Token will leave the source Flow Object, traverse down the Sequence Flow, and enter the target Flow Object.

QualiWare will automatically name the Sequence Flow object with an abbreviated name of the From and To objects.

QualiWare permits the User to provide a Short Description for the Sequence Flow (See the Short Description field on the Sequence Flow tab of the QualiWare Object Editor ).

A Sequence Flow is a line with a solid arrowhead that MUST be drawn with a solid single line.
BPMN does not use the term Control Flow when referring to the lines represented by Sequence Flow or Message Flow. The start of an activity is controlled not only by Sequence Flow (the order of activities), but also by Message Flow (a message arriving), as well as other process factors, such as scheduled resources. Artifacts can be Associated with activities to show some of these other factors. Thus, BPMN uses a more specific term, Sequence Flow, since these lines mainly illustrate the sequence that activities will be performed. A Sequence Flow MAY have a conditional expression attribute, depending on its source object. This means that the condition expression must be evaluated before a Token can be generated and then leave the source object to traverse the Flow. The conditions are usually associated with Decision Gateways, but can also be used with activities. If the source of the Sequence Flow is an activity, rather than Gateway, then a Conditional Marker, shaped as a mini-diamond, MUST be used at the beginning of the Sequence Flow. The diamond shape is used to relate the behavior to a Gateway (also a diamond) that controls the flow within a Process.
A Sequence Flow that has an Exclusive Data-Based Gateway or an activity as its source can also be defined with a condition expression of Default. Such Sequence Flow will have a marker to show that it is a Default flow. The Default Marker MUST be a backslash near the beginning of the line.
By default, the ConditionType of a Sequence Flow is None. This means that there is no evaluation at runtime to determine whether or not the Sequence Flow will be used. (See the Condition Type field on the SequenceFlow tab of the QualiWare Object Editor for the applicable values of None, Expression, and Default).

Once a Token is ready to traverse the Sequence Flow (i.e., the Source is an activity that has completed), then the Token will do so. The normal, uncontrolled use of Sequence Flow, in a sequence of activities, will have a None ConditionType. A None ConditionType MUST NOT be used if the Source of the Sequence Flow is an Exclusive Data-Based or Inclusive Gateway. The ConditionType attribute MAY be set to Expression if the Source of the Sequence Flow is a Task, a Sub-Process, or a Gateway of type Exclusive-Data- Based or Inclusive. If the ConditionType attribute is set to Expression, then a condition marker SHALL be added to the line if the Sequence Flow is outgoing from an activity. However, a condition indicator MUST NOT be added to the line if the Sequence Flow is outgoing from a Gateway. An Expression ConditionType MUST NOT be used if the Source of the Sequence Flow is an Event-Based Exclusive Gateway, a Complex Gateway, a Parallel Gateway, a Start Event, or an Intermediate Event. In addition, an Expression ConditionType MUST NOT be used if the Sequence Flow is associated with the Default Gate of a Gateway. The ConditionType attribute MAY be set to Default only if the Source of the Sequence Flow is an activity or an Exclusive Data-Based Gateway. If the ConditionType is Default, then the Default marker SHALL be displayed.
If the ConditionType attribute is set to Expression, then the ConditionExpression attribute MUST be defined as a valid expression. The expression will be evaluated at runtime. If the result of the evaluation is TRUE, then a Token will be generated and will traverse the Sequence–Subject to any constraints imposed by a Source that is a Gateway. (See the Expression field on the SequenceFlow tab of the QualiWare Object Editor where the user must provide a valid Expression for the applicable SequenceFlow, typically done in an If, Then, Else type of statement.)

The Assignment field in the Sequence Flow object editor allows the QualiWare user to define a set of variables that are or may be necessary for generation of BPEL (Business Process Execution Language).