Transcript Presentation

Philosophy-based
mechanisms of communication
between business and IT stakeholders
Haim Kilov, [email protected]
Ira Sack, [email protected]
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Communication gap between business and IT experts:
syntactic
“We need to understand the domain before
addressing software. … Business models are the
basis of an organization’s entire activity. They are
to be understood by CEO and CFO, not just by
CIO; and therefore explained without ‘method
calls will have an XML representation’.”
Stu Feldman, VP — Internet Technology, IBM
Business and IT domains are different!
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Communication gap between business and IT experts:
semantic
“...when the Marines are ordered to ‘secure a
building’, they form a landing party and assault it.
The same instructions will lead the Army to occupy
the building with a troop of infantry, and the Navy will
characteristically respond by sending a yeoman to
assure that the building lights are turned out. When
the Air Force acts on these instructions, what results
is a ‘three year lease with option to purchase’…”
Attributed to James Schlesinger, from Forbes
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Some specifications are usable
• Precise and explicit
•
•
•
•
Precision without programming
No guessing over ambiguities and tacit assumptions
Precise is not the same as detailed
Simple and concise
•
•
Not a burden to read
Avoid Too Much Stuff by separating concerns (abstraction)
• Problem vs. Solution
–
•
Business vs. System
–
•
•
Example: a person vs. a record of that person
Example: business rules vs. TLAs used to handle them
Stable vs. Volatile
Top-level vs. More Detailed
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Specifications are for human understanding
To get from here to there, we need roadmaps —
domain specifications (a.k.a. ontologies)
They should use the same system of basic constructs
for all (very different) kinds of specifications
Such as business and IT specifications
So that business and IT stakeholders could talk to
each other — and understand each other! — using
concepts with the same semantics: bridge the
communication gap
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Do not start with a blank sheet of paper
Common concepts are not a radical novelty:
They come from philosophy … and from ISO standards
•
•
Technologists “who work on general theories of systems, control
theory, optimization theory, the design of algorithms or
simulation are applied philosophers of sorts, since they use
philosophical concepts, such as those of event and system, and
philosophical principles, such as those of the existence and
lawfulness of the external world” (Mario Bunge)
Aristotelian (intensional) vs. prototypical (extensional —
examples, “user stories”, etc.) approach to modeling
…does a fact correspond to the model?
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Do not start with a blank sheet of paper
Common concepts are not a radical novelty:
They come from philosophy … and from ISO standards
“From time to time it is probably necessary to detach one’s self from
the technicalities of the argument and to ask quite naively what it
is all about” (F.A.Hayek)
“Until we have definite questions to ask, we cannot employ our
intellect; and questions presuppose that we have formed some
provisional hypothesis or theory about the events” (F.A.Hayek)
A model is “a special theory of some factual domain”. It “involves a
substantial deliberate simplification of empirical knowledge, as
well as original constructs not found in experience” (M. Bunge)
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Do not start with a blank sheet of paper
Common concepts are not a radical novelty:
They come from philosophy … and from ISO standards
Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing
• Defines the concepts and analytical framework for
describing arbitrary distributed processing systems
• An excellent system of well-defined common generic
concepts and constructs (patterns of reasoning)
• Emphasis on semantics, not syntax
• Solid foundation based on mathematics
• Well-written and short! (18 pages)
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Example: Names
“only in the context of a proposition has a name meaning”
(Wittgenstein)
a name is “a term which, in a given naming context, refers to
an entity”
(RM-ODP)
David Hilbert noted that the content of elementary geometry does not suffer any
changes if we replace the words “point”, “line”, and “plane” by the terms
“chair”, “table”, and “bar”…
As opposed to “meaningful names”:
“Everyone knows what a patient is” — 50 meanings in 50 contexts
“Everyone knows what a trade confirmation is” — …
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Example: Composition relationship
Composition: “[a] combination of two or more [items] yielding a new [item], at a
different level of abstraction. The characteristics of the new [item] are
determined by the [items] being combined and by the way they are
combined.” (RM-ODP)
“[a] property of a system is emergent if it is not possessed by any component
of the system” (Mario Bunge)
Pric e of
Comm odity
composition
rent
labour
(wages)
Adam Smith, Wealth of
Nations (1776),
Book One, Chapter VI
“Of the Component
Parts of the Price of
Commodities”
profit
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Analytical framework
• Analysis is “breaking down a whole into its components
and their mutual relations”.
(Mario Bunge)
• Ontology — “what is there”:
“[t]he objects which you see in Lombard Street, and in that money world
which is grouped about it, are the Bank of England, the Private Banks,
the Joint Stock Banks, and the bill brokers. But before describing each
of these separately we must look at what all have in common, and at
the relation of each to the others.”
(Walter Bagehot, 1873)
• Another ISO standard: General Relationship Model
• Defines relationships using invariants
• Property determination essential for semantics of
interesting relationships
• Composition, subtyping, reference
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
Business patterns
“When a number of drawings are made after one pattern, though they may all
miss it in some respects, yet they will all resemble it more than they
resemble one another; the general character of the pattern will run through
them all; the most singular and odd will be those which are most wide of it;
and though very few will copy it exactly, yet the most accurate delineations
will bear a greater resemblance to the most careless, than the careless ones
will bear to one another.”
Adam Smith, The theory of moral sentiments (1759)
Template — a “specification of the common features of a collection of [items] in
sufficient detail that an [item] can be instantiated using it” (RM-ODP)
•
•
•
•
Invariant, Type, …
Composition, Subtyping, …
Contract, … [see Uniform Commercial Code]
Trade, Option Trade, …
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack
References
Standard
ISO/IEC JTC1/SC21. Open Distributed Processing - Reference Model: Part 2: Foundations (ITUT Recommendation X.902 | ISO/IEC 10746-2).
Books
Bunge, Mario. Scientific realism. (Ed. M. Mahner). Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001.
Bunge, Mario. Philosophical dictionary. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2003.
Kilov, Haim. Business Models. Prentice-Hall, 2002.
Kilov, Haim, Baclawski, Kenneth (Eds.). Practical Foundations of Business System
Specifications. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
Morabito, J., Sack, I., & Bhate, A. Organization Modeling: Innovative Architectures for the 21st
Century. Prentice Hall (PTR), 1999.
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 1776.
Papers
Hayek, F.A. The theory of complex phenomena. In: The critical approach to science and
technology (In honor of Karl R. Popper). (Ed. Mario Bunge). London: The Free Press of
Glencoe, 1964, pp. 332-349.
Kilov, H., and Sack, I. Exploiting Reusable Abstractions in Organizational Inquiry: Why Reinvent
Square Wheels? In: Inquiring Organizations: Moving from Knowledge Management to
Wisdom (Eds. James Courtney, David B. Paradice, John D. Haynes), Idea Group, 2005.
Philosophy-based mechanisms for communication
[email protected]
[email protected]
Haim Kilov
and Ira Sack