Building knowledge repositories with enterprise modelling and patterns – from theory to practice

An approach to building knowledge repositories, Enterprise Knowledge Patterns (EKP), has been developed and applied throughout a number of research projects, most recently in the ELEKTRA, HyperKnowledge1 and EKLär projects. The EKP approach combines Enterprise Modelling with organisational patterns. Systematic evaluations of applying the approach have been carried out in two of the projects, while the third project is currently running. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the evaluation results and to share practical experiences from building knowledge repositories with Enterprise Modelling and organisational patterns. We discuss issues concerning the knowledge content of pattern based knowledge repositories, the language used to express knowledge in organisational patterns and technology support for storing and retrieving knowledge components.

Change Patterns in Use: A Critical Evaluation

Process model quality has been an area of considerable research efforts. In this context, the correctness-by-construction principle of change patterns provides promising perspectives. However, using change patterns for model creation imposes a more structured way of modeling. While the process of process modeling (PPM) based on change primitives has been investigated, little is known about this process based on change patterns. To obtain a better understanding of the PPM when using change patterns, the arising challenges, and the subjective perceptions of process designers, we conduct an exploratory study. The results indicate that process designers face little problems as long as control-flow is simple, but have considerable problems with the usage of change patterns when complex, nested models have to be created. Finally, we outline how effective tool support for change patterns should be realized.This research is supported by Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P23699-N23.Weber, B.; Pinggera, J.; Torres Bosch, MV.; Reichert, M. (2013). Change Patterns in Use: A Critical Evaluation. En Enterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling, BPMDS 2013. Springer Verlag. 261-276. https://doi.org/11007/978-3-642-38484-4_19S26127

Capability driven development: an approach to designing digital enterprises

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12599-014-0362-0[EN] The need for organizations to operate in changing environments is addressed by proposing an approach that integrates organizational development with information system (IS) development taking into account changes in the application context of the solution. This is referred to as Capability Driven Development (CDD). A meta-model representing business and IS designs consisting of goals, key performance indicators, capabilities, context and capability delivery patterns, is being proposed. The use of the meta-model is validated in three industrial case studies as part of an ongoing collaboration project, whereas one case is presented in the paper. Issues related to the use of the CDD approach, namely, CDD methodology and tool support are also discussed.This work has been partially supported by the EU-FP7 funded project no: 611351 CaaS - Capability as a Service in Digital Enterprises.Berzisa, S.; Bravos, G.; Cardona Gonzalez, T.; Czubayko, U.; España, S.; Grabis, J.; Henkel, M.... (2015). Capability driven development: an approach to designing digital enterprises. Business and Information Systems Engineering. 57(1):15-25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12599-014-0362-0S1525571ArchiMate (2013) An enterprise modeling language from the Open Group. http://www.opengroup.org/archimate/ . Accessed 3 Dec 2014Asadi M, Ramsin R (2008) MDA-based methodologies: an analytical survey. In: Proceedings Model driven architecture – foundations and applications (ECMDA-FA 2008), LNCS 5095, pp 419–431Barney JB (1991) Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. 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Conceptualising Gamification Risks to Teamwork within Enterprise

Gamification in businesses refers to the use of technology-assisted solutions to boost or change staff attitude, perception and behaviour, in relation to certain business goals and tasks, individually or collectively. Previous research indicated that gamification techniques can introduce risks to the business environment, and not only fail to make a positive change, but also raise concerns in relation to ethics, quality of work, and well-being at a workplace. Although the problem is already recognised in principle, there is still a need to clarify and concretise those risks, their factors and their relation to the gamification dynamics and mechanics. To address this, we conducted multi-staged empirical research, including two months’ observation and interview study, in two large-scale businesses using gamification in their workplace. In this paper, we focus on gamification risks related to teamwork within the enterprise. We outline various risk mitigation strategies and map them to primary types of gamification risks. By accomplishing such conceptualisation, we pave the way towards methods to model, detect and predict gamification risks on teamwork and recommend and design practices and strategies to tackle them

From Expert Discipline to Common Practice: A Vision and Research Agenda for Extending the Reach of Enterprise Modeling

The benefits of enterprise modeling (EM) and its contribution to organizational tasks are largely undisputed in business and information systems engineering. EM as a discipline has been around for several decades but is typically performed by a limited number of people in organizations with an affinity to modeling. What is captured in models is only a fragment of what ought to be captured. Thus, this research note argues that EM is far from its maximum potential. Many people develop some kind of model in their local practice without thinking about it consciously. Exploiting the potential of this “grass roots modeling” could lead to groundbreaking innovations. The aim is to investigate integration of the established practices of modeling with local practices of creating and using model-like artifacts of relevance for the overall organization. The paper develops a vision for extending the reach of EM, identifies research areas contributing to the vision and proposes elements of a future research Agenda

Toward an Adaptive Enterprise Modelling Platform

For the past three decades, enterprise modelling (EM) has been emerging as a significant yet complex paradigm to tackle holistic systematic enterprise analysis and design. With a high fluctuation in the global economy, industrial stability and technology shift, the necessity of such paradigms becomes crucial in determining the decisions that an enterprise can make for surviving in such a highly dynamic business ecosystem. EM practices have focused for a long time, on the design-time of enterprise systems. Recently, there has been a rapid development in data analytics, machine learning and intelligent systems from which an EM platform can benefit. EM needs to cope with the new changes in both business and technology; it should also help architects to determine optimum decisions and reduce complexity in technical infrastructure. In this paper, the author discusses several challenges facing enterprise modelling practices and offers an architectural notion for future development focusing on the requirements of a platform that can be called intelligent and adaptive

Suitability of active rules for model transformation

Model transformation promises faster and higher-quality system development processes by automating certain development steps. There are numerous proposals such as QVT and triple graph grammars that are applied in practical design environments. To our surprise, active rule systems have not yet been considered as a platform to execute model transformations. We investigate in this paper the suitability of active rule systems via a case study. An empirical analysis of the complexity is provided as well. It turns out that active rules support the basic functional requirements but some extensions to their execution engine and join order optimization would be needed