1. Realizing OPM Philosophy in the Context of Full Life- Cycle Support Avi Soffer Technion, Israel Institute of Technology Thesis Advisor: Prof. Dov Dori SwSTE’03 Herzlia, Israel November, 2003

2. November, 20032 IEEE Software International Conference Realizing OPM Philosophy in the Context of Full Life Cycle Support Talk Outline When philosophy meets engineering …  OPM and its philosophy  Systems life cycle  Main Argument: There are difficulties in the realization of the OPM philosophy in the realization of the OPM philosophy in the context of Full Life Cycle Support context of Full Life Cycle Support  The proposed solution: The Model Continuity Principal The Model Continuity Principal

3. November, 20033 IEEE Software International Conference What is Object-Process Methodology (OPM) ?  A comprehensive systems modeling and development methodology Major features:  Integration of structure, function, and behavior into a single, unified model  Bi-modal expression of the model: diagrams and semantically equivalent natural language

4. November, 20034 IEEE Software International Conference Objects and Processes Have Equal Significance in an OPM Model OBJECT A thing that exists PROCESS A thing that transforms objects STATE Describes the object ’ s situation

5. November, 20035 IEEE Software International Conference System Life Cycle  Assimilation  Usage  Maintenance  Deployment  Analysis  Design  Implementation and Testing  Development  Identifying  Conceiving  Requirements Elicitation  Initiation

6. November, 20036 IEEE Software International Conference System Life Cycle Evolution Model

7. November, 20037 IEEE Software International Conference OPM Complexity Management  System modeling at any desired level of detail  Flexible combinations of three abstraction/refinement scaling mechanisms:  (Visibility) Out-zooming/In-zooming  (Hierarchy) Folding/Unfolding  (Manifestation) Suppressing/Expressing

8. November, 20038 IEEE Software International Conference Zooming into System Developing Phase

9. November, 20039 IEEE Software International Conference The Essence of System Development  Modeling the system in specific stages of development  Creation of Conceptual models that represent the system in the different stages  Production of artifacts that are pertinent to each stage  Each model highlights a particular view of the system for a certain audience:  Function / Behavior  Human interface  Structure /Architecture  Design  Implementation.

10. November, 200310 IEEE Software International Conference What is the Problem?  The stage ’ s conceptual models differ in:  The domain and ontology they are founded upon  The level of abstraction they express  Their interfaces with the relevant stakeholders  Consequence: discontinuity of information flow form the complete life-cycle perspective form the complete life-cycle perspective

11. November, 200311 IEEE Software International Conference The Problem: Discontinuity of Information Flow Tower of Babel

12. November, 200312 IEEE Software International Conference The OPM Philosophy The OPM philosophy is that the same system model that was started in the initiation phase is gradually developed all the way to the deployment phase, and the transitions between the system's lifecycle phases are gradual and smooth rather than abrupt.  Main Argument There are difficulties in the realization of OPM ’ s smooth There are difficulties in the realization of OPM ’ s smooth transition philosophy. transition philosophy.  The reason Information gaps along the system's Life-Cycle Information gaps along the system's Life-Cycle Evolution model. Evolution model.

13. November, 200313 IEEE Software International Conference The System Development Phase

14. November, 200314 IEEE Software International Conference Analysis of the Information Gap in the System Development Phase  Models are based on different ontologies  Refer to concepts and entities that belong to separate domains. separate domains. Specification What needs to be done What needs to be done Problem domain Problem domainImplementation How it is done How it is done Solution domain Solution domain

15. November, 200315 IEEE Software International Conference The Model Continuity Principle Goal  A single unified model that supports life cycle evolution  Seamless transition between various conceptual models that represent the different stages of the life cycle What is required?  A connection mechanism What does this mechanism do?  Facilitates consistent modeling of the system's specification and its implementation. specification and its implementation.

16. November, 200316 IEEE Software International Conference Attributes of the Connector  Maintains the relationships between individual elements of the connected models  Supports bi-directional transformation to allow traversal of the different stage models from any point in any direction  Implementation of each connector is dependent upon the details of the source and destination models

17. November, 200317 IEEE Software International Conference Potential Applications  Enhancing OPCAT : an OPM-based Integrated Software Engineering Environment (I-SEE)  Better handling of system development issues in the areas of:  Requirements engineering  Verification and validation  Change management  Reuse  Round-trip engineering  Process management and control.

18. November, 200318 IEEE Software International Conference Conclusion  OPM advocates the integration of the various life-cycle system aspects into a single model.  There are information gaps between the conceptual models that represent the different aspects of the system as it is being developed.  Bridging these gaps will enable full implementation of OPM ’ s life-cycle smooth transition philosophy.

19. November, 200319 IEEE Software International Conference Thank You! www.ObjectProcess.org Avi Soffer