Jerry wrote:" Services are activities and processes shared accross." I guess, it is the statement from the Davenport
Actually, this is the crucial point to me. In such definition, almost any activities in an enterprise may be considered as business service because shared across is a quite fuzzy definition. I think (based on to date IT practice in its variety, which is different from 15 years old IT practice described by Davenport), it was and it is very convenient definition for an IT because it covers modern state of applications and related operations. The problem is only in that this state is not sufficient to handle fast and frequent changes required by the business to agile to the market trends. As its appeared, inflexibility of applications is caused by the fact they implement only elements of business operations some of which are frequently based on the previous generation of applications; the applications reflect patched business needs, not real business model of the enterprise. It works OK until market demands quick changes and en enterprise cannot meet this demand because of misdirected IT resources.
Actually, this is the crucial point to me. In such definition, almost any activities in an enterprise may be considered as business service because shared across is a quite fuzzy definition. I think (based on to date IT practice in its variety, which is different from 15 years old IT practice described by Davenport), it was and it is very convenient definition for an IT because it covers modern state of applications and related operations. The problem is only in that this state is not sufficient to handle fast and frequent changes required by the business to agile to the market trends. As its appeared, inflexibility of applications is caused by the fact they implement only elements of business operations some of which are frequently based on the previous generation of applications; the applications reflect patched business needs, not real business model of the enterprise. It works OK until market demands quick changes and en enterprise cannot meet this demand because of misdirected IT resources.
In my proposal, business services and business processes are derived from the enterprise business model irrespective to current IT (applications) state. The business has to stop talking IT language and get back to the business terms and tasks. Each business model has its scope it can evolve in. This evolvement is the subject for SOA, not more. SO, the IT has finite spectrum of business activities to support.
I do distinct between business processes and business operations inside the business services. Business services comprise business objects, i.e. business processes
are performed by business objects. The latter has its own behaviour (look, it is almost OO model) expressed in business operations. The operations performed by entities and deal with things that may be irrelevant to the enterprise business (like legal things in the food retail business) but needed to run the business.
- Michael
Jerry Zhu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
To navigate thro business process literature, just go
to a local university library to search for popular
texts and look at the index for business process.
Google search is also a good way. It wont take you a
dozen hours to do this.
Services are activities and processes shared accross.
They have owners as entities (service providers) and
are used by other entities (consumers). Entity is one
of three dimensions defined by Davenport. I think the
debate whether SOA is OO or not is meaningless. OO
and SO are at different levels with SO at one level
above so SO include OO. OO principle is about
abstraction that can also be used in SO along the
three dimensions defined by Davenport such as
open/close principle and stable dependencies
principle. Viewing the world as levels not only allow
us to see more but also to understand rich information
in the interactions between levels.
Jerry
--- Michael Poulin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]com > wrote:
> Jerry,
>
> I was not able to read through "all literatures
> related to business process" but read a few
> Davenports articles for this time. Mr. Davenport
> defines a business process as simply how an
> organization does its work while I see more
> structure (business activities based on the
> enterprise business model that split into operations
> and operational flows of the business objects
> manipulating business data) and constrains
> (particular business model limitations) in the
> business service and process definitions.
>
> The consequence of the difference is that I do
> not consider a business services as an entity,
> which can be adequately described with OO principles
> only but rather within a combination of OO and
> functional model. That is why SOA to me is not OO
> model but this is, probably, a different discussion
> thread (running now).
>
> Anyway, I am truly thankful to you for the
> reference and, probably, I will contact Mr. Thomas
> H. Davenport for more discussions.
>
>
> Cheers,
> - Michael Poulin
>
>
>
> Jerry Zhu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]com > wrote:
> Michael,
>
> thanks for the text. Human organizations are
> things
> you can see anything you want to see according to
> your
> theory. Reality tend to reveal us based on our
> perspective we bring to it. A perspective
> consists of
> experience and conceptual apparatus. When we
> change
> the conceptual apparatus we change the nature of
> the
> problem. You have presented a conceptual apparatus
> what business processes/services are. Good try.
> I
> think you are doing the right thing that needs to
> be
> understood first and foremost if we want to build
> an
> enterprise information systems that are low cost,
> effective, and adaptive. Without high quality
> business process theory, we can not build a good
> business process and service models. Accordingly
> we
> build a building without a foundation or build a
> building on sand.
>
> Now the issue becomes how do we know our
> conceptual
> apparatus is the best out there. To deal with
> that i
> would read all literatures related to business
> process
> and consult other thinkers. I think it saves your
> time. I like what Davenport defines about
> business
> process in the website.
> http://www.kmbook.com/bpr.htm
>
> I have defined business process according to above
> definition and found abraction opportunities so
> that
> OO design principles are applied at my work.
>
> Best regards
>
> jerry
>
> http://www.kmbook.com/bpr.htm
>
> --- Michael Poulin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]com > wrote:
>
> > Jerry wrote: " Can Michael share definitions of
> > business
> > services/processes?"
> >
> >
> > Here you are, Jerry.
> > I have attached a short document describing the
> > definitions and put a few extracts into the body
> of
> > this message.
> >
> > BUSINESS SERVICE
> > A Business Service, in the context of an
> enterprise
> > business model, may be defined as a stack of
> > following 7 categories:
> > The foundation of a Business Service is data.
> > ->The data becomes business data when its
> business
> > meaning is defined via business meta-data.
> > -->Methods, activities and/or rules that might
> be
> > applied to manipulate the business data.
> Business
> > methods, activities and rules may be grouped for
> > cooperative execution in different scenarios.
> > --->The latter have its own methods and rules of
> > composing data process activities that usually
> > called a workflow.
> > ---->Execution of the 'data manipulation'
> methods,
> > activities and/or rules in business scenarios
> > produces results.
> > ----->The results become business results when
> > corresponding business meta-data is defined.
> > ------>The business service frequently includes
> a
> > mechanism of delivery of the results to the
> business
> > consumers though it is optional.
> >
> >
> > BUSINESS PROCESS
> > In the Business Process, Business Services
> > interact with each other according to
> special
> > methods, activities and/or rules. The
> interactions
> > may be viewed as an exchange of the results
> > (actual or logical) produced by the
> Business
> > Services.
> >
> > That is, a Business Process consists of 2
> categories
> > of elements:
> > Methods, activities and rules of exchanging
> results
> > between Business Services -> Re-formatting
> of
> > the foreign results into the local business data
> > formats for particular Business Service, i.e.
> > meta-data transformation. Sometimes, such
> > transformation is performed by the Business
> Service,
> > which has produced the results, but the data
> format
> > transformation is still considered as a part of
> the
> > Business Process.
> >
> >
> > Business Model and Business Object A Business
> > Concept or Model is a composition of Business
> > Services and Business Processes targeting an
> > accomplishment of particular creative and
> productive
> > goals, usually to generate a revenue.
> >
> >
> > A Business Object is a business modelling
> > abstraction representing a smaller consistent
> and
> > self-contained unit of business with its data,
> its
> > meta-data and predefined activities (the latter
> is
> > optional). Business Objects usually perform as
> the
> > workers?in the Business Service. That is,
> Business
> > Objects implement methods/activities/rules of
> > business data manipulations and participate in
> the
> > Business Processes in the roles of interacting
> > entities.
> >
> >
> >
> > I am looking for your critics and feedback.
> > - Michael Poulin
> >
> > Jerry Zhu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]com > wrote:
>
> > --- Michael Poulin
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]com > wrote:
> >
> > > I have relatively generic definitions of
> > > the Business Services and the Business
> Processes
> > > (at least, I have not found (so far) an
> > enterprise
> > > model which could not be described using
> these
> > > definitions).
>
=== message truncated ===
_____________________ _________ _________ _________ __
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
All-new Yahoo! Mail - Fire up a more powerful email and get things done faster. __._,_.___
SPONSORED LINKS
| Computer software | Computer security software | Computer software program |
| Computer fax software | Computer virus software |
Your email settings: Individual Email|Traditional
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch to Fully Featured
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
