VDML for Business Architects: Part 1 of 11, Introduction

The OMG (Object Management Group) issued an RFP for a Business Architecture Core Metamodel (BACM) in March, 2017. The purpose of this RFP is to obtain a modeling language for business architects to support business leaders in the development of strategic business plans and transformation models.  The modeling language will ensure that the multiple perspectives for a strategic plan are integrated to ensure a consensus on a consistent and validated transformation plan.  The RFP can be found at https://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?bmi/17-03-07 .

The reference to a “core metamodel” reflects the intent to provide a metamodel (modeling language specification) that captures and integrates the key elements of existing diagrams and tables used by business architects to describe strategic solutions.  This integration will ensure the consistency of the various perspectives and associated displays for rapid configuration, validation and development of consensus on business transformation solutions.  The RFP does not call for specification of displays since an integrated modeling capability will enable enhanced views that will be refined as business architect practices continue to evolve.  The VDML specification can be found at https://www.omg.org/spec/VDML/

Three draft specification proposals were submitted to OMG in May, 2018. One of those submissions is based on VDML (Value Delivery Modeling Language), an existing OMG specification, adopted in May, 2015.  The BACM submission proposes some extensions to VDML to improve support of strategic planning and transformation management. The current VDML specification can be found at https://www.omg.org/spec/VDML/ .

VDML was developed to address the modeling needs of business leaders, such as

·         Abstraction to represent a business design at an appropriate level of detail for business leaders,
·         Identification of the sources and consequences of value contributions for customers,
·         Recognition of the many ways that people participate in doing the work of the enterprise,
·         Support for analysis of potential improvements and the impact of innovations,
·         Analysis of the interactions with customers, business partners and other members of the business ecosystem, and
·         Rapid exploration of potential business changes and optimization of operations across lines of business.

While providing a powerful modeling capability for business analysis and design, the version of VDML adopted by OMG falls short of support for strategic planning and business transformation as required by the Business Architecture Core Metamodel (BACM) RFP.  The VDML-based submission to the BACM RFP is named Business Architecture VDML Extension (BAVE) and includes extensions to address strategic planning and business transformation. 

The result is an integrated modeling capability that fills the gap between strategic planning and conceptual business design that ensures a clear, shared understanding for implementation of transformation requirements as well as analysis, monitoring and incremental improvement of business operations.
 The BAVE submission to the BACM RFP demonstrates VDML support for most of the business architecture perspectives and provides some extensions to address innovation, strategic planning and transformation shortcomings.  The submission illustrates how subsets of the metamodel support the following perspectives:

·         Organization
·         Capability
·         Process
·         Value
·         Scenario
·         Measurements
·         Business partners and customers
·         Products and services
·         Information and data
·         Regulations, policies and rules
·         Objectives and transformation planning

These perspectives will support various diagrams currently used by business architects.  However, the integrated model will also support evolving business architect practices and future diagrams enabled by VDML integration of these different perspectives.  The integrated metamodel also brings together the key VDML modeling features that I will describe in subsequent posts.

The subsequent ten posts on this topic, VDML for Business Architects, will describe features that distinguish the extended VDML as a robust modeling language for business planning, analysis and design by business people and, in particular, by business architects.  Most of these features are included in the current version of VDML.  The features are presented in the following categories:

·         General features
·         Organization
·         Capability modeling
·         Process abstraction
·         Measurements
·         Accountability
·         Value contribution analysis
·         Executive dashboard support
·         Agile business architecture
·         Business transformation

Features based on the proposed BAVE extensions are identified in Parts 7, 10 and 11. 

For more abut business modeling and VDML, see my book, Building the Agile Enterprise with Capabilities, Collaborations and Values.