Breathing Life into Models: The Next Generation of Enterprise Modeling

TL;DR

This paper proposes a unified framework with architecture, statics, and dynamics to integrate formal correctness with user-friendly system modeling, enabling more holistic enterprise models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework that bridges the gap between formal correctness and informal system pleasantness in enterprise modeling.

Findings

Framework enables seamless transition between formal and informal models

Allows to 'breathe life' into static models

Provides new insights into system pleasantness in digital age

Abstract

Edsger W. Dijkstra has frequently suggested building a "firewall" between the technology- and application-side of computer science. His justification: The methods to attack the computer scientists' formal, mathematical "correctness problem" differ fundamentally from the methods to attack the applicants' informal "pleasantness problem". In this setting, a model is always confined to one side or the other of this wall. This keynote shows that a seamless transition between both sides can be achieved by a framework with architecture, statics, and dynamics as the three pillars of modeling computer-integrated systems. Selected examples justify this framework. It allows to "breath life" into (static) models, and it implies a new understanding of the "pleasantness" of computer-integrated systems, which is well-needed in the age of "digital first".