Hi, Hugh,
Thank you for your response. I would appreciate your clarifications on some of the points you made. 1. Business Users versus Business Modelers. Looks like you use these terms interchangeably. Usually they represent opposite sides of the spectrum. Contemporary view is that Business Users don't use modeling tools (leaving it to professionals - Business Modelers / Analysts). What Business Users do care about is output of these tools that Business Modelers produce (diagrams, models, etc). Because of that, I think discussion of which tool easier to use is secondary compare to the discussion of what types of diagrams each tool can and can't produce. The problem, from the Business Analysts standpoint, would be that they couldn't express something or do something using a certain tool, rather than that this tool is hard to use (we are professionals, after all and should be able to put a nail into the board with any hammer that happened to be in our hands J). 2. Which of the diagrams that you named could NOT be, by your opinion, re-produced with Rational Rose (I am very curious here): Organization Chart Business Interaction Model Goal Model Workflow Model 3. When you have mentioned an addition of a "new dimension to what Rose offers", did you imply that UML is not sufficient for Business modeling? Or that Rose does not implement UML to its full specification? Regards, David Lyalin -----Original Message----- From: Hugh Mensch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 10:32 AM To: Lyalin, David S. Subject: RE: (ROSE) Business Modeling: Proforma's ProVision Workbench versus Rational Rose - A reply from Proforma Hi, David, Thanks for the quick response. I, too, would welcome other opinions on this topic. You raised an interesting point about the items that are not easily modeled in Rose. First, I assume you are more sophisticated than most business users. Most business modelers who do not care about application development, struggle when trying to use Rose. ProVision was built using the MS Office paradigm so it would be intuitive for Office users. ProVision offers several model types for the business user. These include the Organization Chart, the Business Interaction Model (which shows high-level interactions among people or oganizations), the Goal Model (which allows you to document goals and assign them to organizations or activities), and the very popular Workflow Model (similar to an activity diagram, but having the ability to capture costs, timing, goals, opportunities and more). These models are all related and easy to build and understand. The Workflow Model can be nested to show lower levels of detail. It is the basis for simulation. One can also attach both Use Cases and Class Diagrams to the Workflow Model, thus tying these models more directly to the business processes which they are to support. We believe that these models add a new dimension to what Rose offers. Best regards, Hugh Mensch -----Original Message----- From: Lyalin, David S. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 10:06 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Cc: Lyalin, David S. Subject: FW: (ROSE) Business Modeling: Proforma's ProVision Workbench versus Rational Rose - A reply from Proforma Hello, Hugh, Thank you for sharing with me the information regarding Proforma's ProVision modeling tool. The tool itself and your explanations about its positioning in the overall market and, specifically, its positioning in relation to Rational's Rose product look interesting and solid. At the same time your thoughts about Rational Rose modeling tool differs from the view that Rational Corporation presents at its web site: "Rational Rose software is the world's leading visual modeling tool. Business analysts can use Rational Rose to model and visualize business processes and highlight opportunities to increase efficiency. Data analysts can model databases design in Rational Rose, improving their communication with developers. And when you model use cases in Rational Rose, you can be sure your solution is being built for the user. Rational Rose unifies business, systems and data analysts by enabling them to create and manage models in one tool with one modeling language". Based on my experience, I don't see what business modeling tasks could NOT be performed or what types of business models could NOT be build with Rational Rose modeling tool, except for BP simulation. As a Consultant for one of the Fortune 100 companies and for one of the Federal Government agencies that use Rational tools extensively, I am deeply interested in this subject and would appreciate opinions on this topic from Rose forum participants and would welcome a response from Rational Corp. Thank you. David Lyalin -----Original Message----- X-Sybari-Trust: f8efe2e4 b467d1dc b5410331 0000003d From: Hugh Mensch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 8:50 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: (ROSE) Business Modeling: Proforma's ProVision Workbench versus Rational Rose - A reply from Proforma Hello, David, Your post from the Rose Forum was routed to me. You may get other responses, but I wanted to reply on behalf of Proforma, where I work as the VP of Business Development. Proforma believes Rose is a fine tool for design-level work in Application Development, whereas our ProVision products are positioned to help the business community analyze and improve the way their business operates. As a by-product of this business analysis, a repository of information is built that can be used by those developing applications to support the redesigned business. We have built a bi-directional link between this repository and Rose, so you can enjoy the best of both ProVision's business analysis and Rose's design capabilities. Gartner agrees with our positioning. I have attached a Gartner report on Business Process Analysis and Modeling Tools. Note that Rational does not even appear on the Magic Quadrant; Gartner does not believe Rational participates in this segment of the market. Regarding simulation, Proforma offers both Monte Carlo (standard) and Discrete Event (an optional upgrade) simulation. We allow you to simulate costs, timing and resource utilization. Simulation can be a powerful tool, but it does rely on your having good statistics or estimates on the cost and timing of each step in a business process. I have attached a testimonial from Great America Insurance, an active user of ProVision's simulation capabilities. I hope this helps answer a couple of your questions. To continue this discussion, feel free to call me at 248-356-9775 x-246. Best regards, Hugh Mensch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Lyalin, David S. Sent: Friday, 22 February 2002 11:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Lyalin, David S. Subject: (ROSE) Business Modeling: Proforma's ProVision Workbench versus Rational Rose I would appreciate an input on the following topics in the area of business modeling tools: Does Rational Rose provides everything that is needed for business modeling? What is your opinion about Proforma's ProVision Workbench business modeling tool (versus Rational Rose)? How important are simulation capabilities in business modeling tool? Thank you. David Lyalin [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ * Rose Forum is a public venue for ideas and discussions. * For technical support, visit http://www.rational.com/support * * Post or Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subscription Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Archive of messages: * http://www.rational.com/support/usergroups/rose/rose_forum.jsp * Other Requests: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To unsubscribe from the list, please send email * To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subject: <BLANK> * Body: unsubscribe rose_forum *************************************************************************
