Models for supporting the redesign of organizational work

ABSTRACT

Many types of models have been proposed for supporting organizational work. In this paper, we consider models that are used for supporting the redesign of organizational work. These models are used to help discover opportunities for improvements in organizations, introducing information technologies where appropriate. To support the redesign of organizational work, models are needed for describing work configurations, and for identifying issues, exploring alternatives, and evaluating them. Several approaches are presented and compared. The i* framework — consisting of the Strategic Dependency and Strategic Rationale models — is discussed in some detail, as it is expressly designed for modelling and redesigning organizational work. We argue that models which view organizational participants as intentional actors with motivations and intents, and abilities and commitments, are needed to provide richer representations of organizational work to support its effective redesign. The redesign of a bank loan operation is used as illustration.

REFERENCES

• Briand95: Lionel Briand , Walcélio Melo , Carolyn Seaman , Victor Basili, Characterizing and assessing a large-scale software maintenance organization, Proceedings of the 17th international conference on Software engineering, p.133-143, April 24-28, 1995, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/225014.225027]
• Brodie84: M. L. Brodie, J. Mylopoulos, J. W. Schmidt, eds., On Conceptual Modelling: Perspectives from Artificial Intelligence, Databases, and Programming Languages, Springer-Verlag, 1984.
• Bubenko93: J. A. Bubenko, Extending the Scope of Information Modeling, Proc. ~th Int. Workshop on the Deductive Approach to Information Systems and Databases, Lloret-Costa Brava, Catalonia, Sept. 20-22, 1993, pp. 73-98.
• Chung93: Kyungwha Lawrence Chung, Representing and using non-functional requirements: a process-oriented approach, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada, 1993
• Chung95: L. Chung , B. A. Nixon , E. Yu, Using non-functional requirements to systematically support change, Proceedings of the Second IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering, p.132, March 27-29, 1995
• Conklin88: Jeff Conklin , Michael L. Begeman, gIBIS: a hypertext tool for exploratory policy discussion, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.6 n.4, p.303-331, Oct. 1988 [doi>10.1145/58566.59297]
• Conklin91: E. j. Conklin and K. C. Burgess-Yakemovic, A process-oriented approach to design rationale, Human-Computer Interaction, 6(3-4), 1991.
• Curtis92: Bill Curtis , Marc I. Kellner , Jim Over, Process modeling, Communications of the ACM, v.35 n.9, p.75-90, Sept. 1992 [doi>10.1145/130994.130998]
• Dardenne93: Anne Dardenne , Axel van Lamsweerde , Stephen Fickas, Goal-directed requirements acquisition, Science of Computer Programming, v.20 n.1-2, p.3-50, April 1993
• Davenport93: Thomas H. Davenport, Process innovation: reengineering work through information technology, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 1993
• Dubois94: E. Dubois, Ph. Du Bois, F. Dubru, and M. Petit, Agent-Oriented Requirements Engineering- A Case Study Using the ALBERT Language, Proc. ,~th international Working Conference on Dynamic Modelling and Information Systems - D YNMOD'9~, Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands, Sept. 1994.
• Feather87: Martin S. Feather, Language support for the specification and development of composite systems, ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), v.9 n.2, p.198-234, April 1987 [doi>10.1145/22719.22947]
• Fickas92: Stephen Fickas , B. Robert Helm, Knowledge Representation and Reasoning in the Design of Composite Systems, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.18 n.6, p.470-482, June 1992 [doi>10.1109/32.142870]
• Fikes80: R. E. Fikes and D. A. Henderson, On Supporting the Use of Procedures in Office Work, Proceedings of American Association for Artificial Intelligence, pp. 202-207, 1980.
• Greenspan94: Sol Greenspan , John Mylopoulos , Alex Borgida, On formal requirements modeling languages: RML revisited, Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Software engineering, p.135-147, May 16-21, 1994, Sorrento, Italy
• Hammer93: M. Hammer and J. Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, HarperBusiness, 1993.
• Jarke92: M. Jarke , J. Mylopoulos , J. W. Schmidt , Y. Vassiliou, DAIDA: an environment for evolving information systems, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.10 n.1, p.1-50, Jan. 1992 [doi>10.1145/128756.128757]
• Jarke94: M. Jarke and K. Pohl, Requirements Engineering in the Year 2001: On (Virtually) Managing a Changing Reality, Workshop on System Requirements: Analysis, Management, and Exploitation, Schlot3 Dagstuhl, Saarland, Germany, October 4-7, 1994.
• Keen91: Peter G. W. Keen, Shaping the future: business design through information technology, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA, 1991
• Kling82: R. Kling, W. Scacchi, The Web of Computing: Computer Technology as Social Organization Advances in Computing, vol. 21, 1982, pp. 1-90.
• Lee92: Jintae Lee, A decision rationale management system: capturing, reusing, and managing the reasons for decisions, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 1992
• MacLean91: A. MacLean, R. Young, V. Bellotti, T. Moran, Questions, Options, and Criteria: Elements of Design Space Analysis, Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 6, 1991, pp. 201-250.
• Medina-Mora92: Raul Medina-Mora , Terry Winograd , Rodrigo Flores , Fernando Flores, The action workflow approach to workflow management technology, Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work, p.281-288, November 01-04, 1992, Toronto, Ontario, Canada [doi>10.1145/143457.143530]
• Mylopoulos90: John Mylopoulos , Alex Borgida , Matthias Jarke , Manolis Koubarakis, Telos: representing knowledge about information systems, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.8 n.4, p.325-362, Oct. 1990 [doi>10.1145/102675.102676]
• Mylopoulos92: John Mylopoulos , Lawrence Chung , Brian Nixon, Representing and using nonfunctional requirements: a process-oriented approach, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, v.18 n.6, p.488-497, June 1992
• Potts88: C. Potts , G. Bruns, Recording the reasons for design decisions, Proceedings of the 10th international conference on Software engineering, p.418-427, April 11-15, 1988, Singapore
• Ross77: D. T. Ross and K. E. Shoman, Structured Analysis for Requirements Definition, IEEE Trans. Soft. Eng., Vol. SE-3, No. 1, Jan. 1977.
• Schael93: Thomas Schael , Buni Zeller, Workflow management systems for financial services, Proceedings of the conference on Organizational computing systems, p.142-153, November 01-04, 1993, Milpitas, California, United States [doi>10.1145/168555.168569]
• Tapscott93: Don Tapscott , Art Caston, Paradigm shift: the new promise of information technology, McGraw-Hill, Inc., New York, NY, 1993
• Turner84: Jon A. Turner, Computer mediated work: the interplay between technology and structured jobs, Communications of the ACM, v.27 n.12, p.1210-1217, Dec. 1984 [doi>10.1145/2135.2139]
• Yu93: Eric S. K. Yu , John Mylopoulos, An actor dependency model of organizational work: with application to business process reengineering, Proceedings of the conference on Organizational computing systems, p.258-268, November 01-04, 1993, Milpitas, California, United States [doi>10.1145/168555.168584]
• Yu94a: Eric S. K. Yu , John Mylopoulos, Understanding “why” in software process modelling, analysis, and design, Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Software engineering, p.159-168, May 16-21, 1994, Sorrento, Italy
• Yu94b: Eric Siu-Kwong Yu, Modelling strategic relationships for process reengineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ont., Canada, 1996
• Yu94c: Eric S. K. Yu , John Mylopoulos, From E-R to "A-R" - Modelling Strategic Actor Relationships for Business Process Reengineering, Proceedings of the13th International Conference on the Entity-Relationship Approach, p.548-565, December 13-16, 1994
• Yu95: E. Yu, P. Du Bois, E. Dubois, J. Mylopoulos, From Organization Models to System Requirements A "Cooperating Agents" Approach, submitted to the 3rd Int. Conf. on Cooperative Information Systems, CoopIS-95, Vienna, Austria, May 9-12 1995.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  J. Computer Applications
  J.1 ADMINISTRATIVE DATA PROCESSING
      Subjects: Financial (e.g., EFTS)

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
  H.4 INFORMATION SYSTEMS APPLICATIONS

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.6 SIMULATION AND MODELING

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
  K.6 MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTING AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
      K.6.1 Project and People Management
          Subjects: Systems analysis and design

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Management