Requirements Modelling and Specification for Service Oriented Architecture

6.5. Summary

Current business process modelling notations are suitable for detailed analysis of business processes and services but are too complex to scale up to model entire enterprises. SOA must be based on business goals.

A mission grid is a matrix of business processes organized by shared business goals and logical rôles. Each process in the grid may be annotated with business rules, process interactions, service interfaces, existing systems and APIs, process categories and strategic plans.

The normal steps in mission grid analysis are as follows.

• Establish external goals.

• Establish internal goals.

• Identify processes (before and after).

• Drill down and iterate (before and after).

• Organize the processes into logical rôles (before and after).

• Agree process categories.

• Find business rules and process interactions.

• Agree strategic plans for each process.

• Record existing systems, service interfaces and APIs. Plan new services.

• Assign process improvement priorities as part of company strategic plan.

Process documentation should include at least the following headings or items.

• Mission statement.

• Process description, including any pre-conditions and any post-conditions not listed as goals.

• Goals.

• Logical roles.

• Process categories.

• Business rules.

• Process interactions.

• Service interfaces needed, existing systems/services and APIs.

• Strategy.

Mission Grid Analysis provides a practical method of analysing and improving business processes in the large. It can be used in concert with other approaches such ...