1. Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility
Models, Languages and Software Systems
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

2. Motivation (1)
current design and use of enterprise systems unsatisfactory
too little reuse and integration
little flexibility
too little account for peculiarities of organisational action systems
often characterized by inefficiency, inconsistency and lack of flexibility
communication barriers between business and IT
cognitive capabilities/constraints of users 10
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

3. Motivation (2)
too little support for coping with challenges and opportunities of the digital transformation
may require radical change (of products, processes and even of business model)
requires both, flexibility of information system and action system
progress compromised by path dependencies
requires thoughtful and agile employees
that understand the construction and adaptability of information systems
… and information systems that serve them as powerful tools 20
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

4. Need for Abstraction
reuse and integration require discovering/constructing commonalities shared by a range of systems
abstracting on common properties
abstracting details required for adaptation to specific needs away
requires theory of targeted domain
to identify commonalities
to identify an invariant core
modelling/programming language concepts that enable expressing those abstractions 30
Current mainstream OO languages allow for limited abstraction only!
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

5. Theories/Models of the Enterprise
no theories to be expected that are of similar epistemological power as theories in the natural sciences
ontological assumption: contingent subject
hence: no explanation of the present, no prediction of the future
to be expected from theories/models of the enterprise
knowledge offerings to improve the understanding of non- trivial phenomena (e.g. organizational resistance to change, lack of rational behavior …)
models that cover a wide range of possible future worlds which might be more attractive than the present world 40
Need for cross-disciplinary collaboration!
Need for people who appreciate a theoretical perspective.
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

6. Software Development & Maintenance50
„engineering“
Formalisation
agile development
flexibility
“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.”
Agile Manifesto
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

7. Organisational design
Organizing 60
Organisational design
Formalisation
Organisation
development
Flexibility
“My point is that we can’t hope to create new organizational forms in old ways. We have to get beyond tinkering with existing organization structures. We have to imaginize and explore creative possibilities that can add new chapters to the history of how we organize and manage.”
Gareth Morgan
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

8. Software Architecture (1)70
restrictive schema
Formalisation
Loose coupling
Flexibility
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

9. Software Architecture (2)80
restrictive schema
Formalisation
Loose coupling
Integrity
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

10. Prototypical Organisations (2)90
Bureaucracy
Formalisation
“agile” organisation
Flexibility
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

11. Organisational Change
“Our conventional view may bluntly be summarised as follows: Organizations are rigid in terms of belief, paradigms, or world-views, and they may even persist with low performance for a long time. Already established knowledge structures hardly ever change except in cases where new management comes in or there is a crisis.”
Georg von Krogh/Johan Roos
100
“In this world, mechanistic thinking breaks down and managers have to find fresh images for understanding and shaping what they’re doing.”
Gareth Morgan
“Imaginization is about the creation of “new space”: new space in which new thinking, new insights, and new dialogue can develop and from which new initiatives can emerge.”
Gareth Morgan
“Design includes the generation of new possibilities.”
Winograd/Flores
How could we design new possibilities?
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

12. Domain Theory (1) Richness of domain theory Reference Models DSL
110
Reference Models
Richness of domain theory
DSL
Architectures
GPL
range of possible realisations
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

13. Domain Theory (2) ? + ? ++ Richness of domain theory Reference Models
120 ?
Reference Models
Richness of domain theory +
DSL ?
Architectures ++
GPL
Modification effort
depends on quality of abstraction
How can we tell the quality of an abstraction?
Supporting Organisational Efficiency and Agility

14. Conceptual Models – Much More than Drawings
“Through models we take the reality of the past and the possibilities of the future into the present.”
Bernd Mahr
130
“Maps give us a reality beyond our reach.”
Denis Wood
“In science, as in much of art, human knowledge is achieved by means of representation. By contrast with nonhuman animals, human beings create the means of their own cognition. That is to say, we create cognitive artifacts which not only go beyond the biologically evolved and genetically inherited modes of perceptual and cognitive activity, but which radically alter the very nature of learning and which demarcate human knowledge from animal intelligence. The cognitive artifacts we create are models: representations to ourselves of what we do, of what we want, and of what we hope for.”
Marx Wartofsky
© Ulrich Frank | Role of Models

15. Vision 1: Automation
address insufficiencies of human action systems by thoroughly developed (formal) models
that serve as a versatile schema for performing organisational tasks
that enable increasing the level of automation and control substantially
managing the firm can be done by a machine
decision making through the analysis of models (and corresponding instances)
adapting the business by adapting models at runtime
140
Engineering Perspective: Eliminate the Human Factor
© Ulrich Frank | Role of Models

16. Vision 2: Interactive Models
Software will further penetrate organisations.
Most stakeholders will perceive and conceptualize an organisation through its representation in software -> „The software is the enterprise.“
Models could serve as a core representation of the enterprise and its software (and the resources managed by software) – to promote
comprehensibility, transparency
organisational integration
adaptability of software
decision making
„“The model is the enterprise.“
150
Models as (cognitive) tools and communication media
© Ulrich Frank | Role of Models

17. Goals of the Seminar outline research agenda
assessment of models as enablers of future generation enterprise (systems)
identification of key prerequisites of change of
organisational action systems
enterprise software systems
identification and assessment of approaches to foster synchronization of models and code
assessment of user empowerment through models
outline research agenda
for cross-disciplinary collaboration
for developing new generation of enterprise software systems
160
© Ulrich Frank | Role of Models