Requirements Modelling and Specification for Service Oriented Architecture

Chapter 6. Models of Large Enterprises

I am big. It's the pictures that got small.

Brackett, Wilder and Marshman (Sunset Boulevard, 1950)

Business process modelling techniques based on activity diagrams, BPMN or Catalysis Conversation Analysis are all very well for modelling individual process areas within the enterprise. They facilitate the analysis of workflow within a business area and the sort of detailed models that can form that basis of system models and provide a basis for SOA implementation. However, attempts to apply these same techniques or notations to large organizations are doomed to drown in a sea of detail and be caught between the monster of procrastination and the whirlpool of slow progress. They are doomed to, in a word, failure.

In this short chapter we will learn a simple and pragmatic technique for modelling businesses in the large and see how such a corporate model or models can be used to home in upon and organize our more detailed business process models. The model can also provide the basis for a description of the high level structure of a service oriented architecture: SOA in the large.