Interactions, Goals and Rules in a Collaborative Modelling Session

Abstract

Abstract. Collaborative modeling can enhance productivity and quality of modeling in system development and enterprise engineering projects by helping to construct agreement and a sense of model ownership among stakeholders/modelers. Most of these stakeholders have relatively low expertise in formal modeling; advanced modeler-oriented support for collaborative modeling is a possible remedy. As a basis for further development of such support (methods, tools), we have carried out a detailed exploratory study of the interaction between modelers, involving diverse aspects of modeling: goal setting, modeling language concepts, planning, etc. Central in our approach is the study of how collaborative modelers negotiate, set, use, and deal with the various rules/goals governing interactive modeling sessions. We describe the conceptual framework and approach used for our analysis, and present findings from a case study which focused on the first phases of a session concerning basic Business Process Modeling. We also compare our findings to some existing work, to demonstrate the relevance of our approach.

Atualização Colaborativa do Modelo de Processos de Negócio

“…A modelação colaborativa pode aumentar a produtividade e qualidade da modelação contribuindo para a construção de acordos e de um sentimento de propriedade entre os stakeholders (Ssebuggwawo, Hoppenbrouwers, & Proper 2009). A fim de chegar a um consenso ou acordo, os modeladores devem comprometer-se a trabalhar em equipa e respeitar os conhecimentos coletivos, convenções e decisões.…”

Asking Questions about Asking Questions in Collaborative Enterprise Modelling

“…Previous to this, it was already theorized [7,18] (backed up by analysis of observed collaborative modelling sessions [8]) that collaborative modelling as a conversation involves the setting and use of Rules constraining both the Interactions of the conversation as well as its chief outcome (the Model). The Interactions include both the stating of propositions and discussion of those propositions, leading to acceptance of some propositions by the participants.…”

“…The Interactions include both the stating of propositions and discussion of those propositions, leading to acceptance of some propositions by the participants. Accepted propositions at a given time constitute the Model at that time [8]. Apart from the primary result of modelling (the Model), results may be social in nature, e.g.…”

“…In most cases, emphasis is on 'collaborative diagram drawing' (for example [6]). A different (though not unrelated) approach chooses to view collaborative modelling as a model-oriented conversation in which propositions are exchanged and discussed [7,8].…”

An Exploratory Study of IT-Enabled Collaborative Process Modeling

“…He [13] also studied differences in the final product (i.e., the model/ script) with collaborative tool support. Ssebuggwawo et al [14] examined collaborative modeling by looking for rules, goals and interactions proposing the notion of Modeling Games. All of the above work used setups where participants were locally attendant and therefore be able to communicate directly.…”