Hi Andy,
I work in Rational as a consultant and over the last year, I have successfully used Rational Rose and some of our other tools to support both small and large organisations model and transform their business. I follow the Rational Unified Process and utilise techniques from Ivar Jacobson's book the "Object Advantage". This method that utilises object orientated techniques is a very efficient way to document and understand the way business workers and how they and therefore the organisational structures interact with each other. Following is a brief summary of the overall process we follow within an iterative lifecycle. 1. Define the Business Modeling's vision and objectives 2. Define the Business Use Model in terms of Actors and Use Cases. Use Cases are interesting. In the first few days, the business often haven't come to grip with them and believe they may be a waste of time. Once they have redesigned their end-to-end processes, and have used the Use Cases as a requirements reference to validate their new process, they become extremely valuable. Use Cases also assist in avoiding the functional decomposition trap which makes it very difficult to understand how organisational units interact with each other or how they fit in the "value" chain so that questions like "why is this step done, is it necessary?" are difficult to be answered and require further research. 3. Understand the business today. 3a. I use Sequence (or Collaboration) diagrams to capture the way that workers interact with other workers, entities and Actors (people or systems external to the business) 3b. By creating a Use Case Realisation and then using sequence (or collaboration) diagrams, we document today's processes in terms of scenarios (HOW). Once this is complete, I run a script in Rose (VOPC) that creates the class diagram that shows all classes (eg workers) that collaborate together to deliver the value to the actor. We begin to abstract the documented processes and determine the requirements (the WHAT) in Use Cases. We may use an Activity Diagram to assist in describing the flow within the Use Case. 3c. I now run a SoDA report that creates a description of today's processes. c. We begin to define the Organisation Structure in Rose using Packages stereotyped with <Organizational Unit> and begin to allocate the Business Workers to where they reside. d. We now begin to design the new processes. I use Sequence diagrams again. At the end, I have a list of classes (including workers, internal deliverables, systems-specialised worker) that also have their operations defined. I now run the SoDA business worker report as the first step towards refining roles and responsibilities. (I modify the standard template and for each sequence diagram, include the message name and documentation. This creates the process description automatically from the diagram) 4. While all of this is happening, we are continually identifying and documenting any improvement opportunities and deriving the system requirements. 5. The next step is to refine the business workers into a set of roles. I personally believe this adds much value to the process because any individual within the organisation can now be handed one or more role descriptions. This is a much better way of defining a persons position within the company than having a non-standardised approach. Using Rose, you can create a new class diagram, place a class onto the diagram, select it and expand all related objects. This allows you to very quickly understand all of the relationships this worker/role has to other classes. 6. Using a technique similar to that used by software architects, we use Rose to analyse the communications between different organisational units (sub-systems). Using this and diagrams such as collaboration diagrams, the organisational unit's roles and responsibilities are refined. What you end up with from this process is 1. A clear understanding of what the value a function has in the value chain 2. The Business Requirements - ie. the WHAT must be done to ensure that value is created/delivered. (These are often used to resolve those process steps that are historical and no longer necessary) 3. Clear picture of HOW the requirements are met today. 4. A redesigned view of HOW the requirements will be met tomorrow 5. A clear definition of the organisational structure and its responsibilities. 6. A list of Roles and their responsibilities. This may also include a definition of positions and what roles they require. 7. An understanding of the relationships between different classes (workers/entities) 8. A Business Model that ties it all together including the foundation for a Domain Model (Major business entities and their relationships) 9. Optionally - The system requirements for the systems to support the Business Process Reengineering program including the traceability between business requirements and system requirements. (We use Requisite Pro for this). I noticed that you have also posted a question about Activity diagrams. You may have noticed that they have not featured very heavily in the way I use Rose. I find people are very familiar with this type of diagram (they are similar to flowcharts) and wish to use them exclusively. Although they are valuable in modeling, they also present problems when business modeling. The first one is that they are often describe the process insufficiently. When someone reviews them , they are interpreted differently each time or leave out sufficient detail to redesign them. It is also difficult to describe the correct level of abstraction (detail) for them. This is why I use sequence diagrams. I find that when people describe the things they do, they describe it in terms of how OBJECTS interact with each other. eg. I pick up document X, fill it in, give it to person Y, who then ...... X & Y are both objects and this is the level we record at. This gives a detail record as a diagram that then becomes the basis for the other work. At times, I have found that Activity diagrams are required by other stakeholders as they are used as input into for a process simulation. The combination of Use Cases and their realizations provide the foundation for a very efficient and consistent process to create and refine the input into these other systems. I hope this has help you to get an insight as to how Rational Rose can assist in modeling the business processes, workers and entities. Glen Tattersall Principal Consultant Rational Software Pty Ltd Level 2, 459 Collins St Melbourne VIC 3000 Australia Phone: +61 3 9613 9600 Fax : +61 3 9613 9699 Mob : 043 89 22224 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, 1 February 2002 10:04 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: (ROSE) Information Required All, I am new to using Rational Rose and was wondering if someone could share their experiences on using Rose to perform Business Process Modelling. Many Thanks Andy Ng External Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Consignia Plc is registered in England and Wales. Registered number 4138203. Registered Office at 148 Old Street London EC1V9HQ. This email and any attachments are confidential and intended for the addressee only. 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