Artifact: Business Design Model
This artifact is a concrete description of how elements of the business are related and how they collaborate to perform the business use cases. It also defines the external business services that are invoked by business actors in the performance of business use cases.
Domains: Business Modeling
Purpose
To concretely describe how the business works to provide that which is described by the business use cases.
Relationships
Container Artifact
Description
Main Description

This artifact concretely defines the services offered by the business in terms of interfaces and operations, the information that is passed around (business entities), the internal business structures (that is, organization and business workers), and how they collaborate to realize the external behavior described in the business use cases.

This is the place where all the design decisions are captured.  The "more abstract" elements from the Business Analysis Model evolve into "more concrete" elements that take into account constraints an details like the business environment, organizational capabilities, etc.  For example, the initial Business Workers are mapped or realized into human workers or automated systems and services.  In most of the cases the Business Analysis Model evolves into a Business Design Model as more concrete decisions are made.

This Business Model is used by stakeholders and business analysts to understand how the business currently works (in as-is form), and to analyze the effect of changes to the business(in to-be form).  The business analyst is responsible for the structure and integrity of the model along with detailing the elements within the model.  The model is also used by systems analysts for deriving system requirements based on how automated systems - usually software-intensive automated business workers - will be used as part of the business process.  Software architects use the model to define a software architecture that fits the organization seamlessly and to identify classes in software analysis and design models.

Brief Outline

The Business Design Model can have the following properties, similar to the Business Analysis Model:

  • Introduction: A textual description that serves as a brief introduction to the model.
  • Business Systems: Components in the model, representing a hierarchy*.
  • Business Workers: The Business Worker classes in the model, owned by the Business Systems.
  • Business Entities: The Business Entity classes in the model, owned by the Business Systems.
  • Business Events: The Business Event classes in the model, owned by the Business Systems.
  • Business Rules: The Business Rules captured in the model. These are not the Business Rules that are captured in document form in a separate artifact.
  • Relationships: The relationships in the model, owned by the Business Systems.
  • Business Use-Case Realizations: The Business Use-Case Realizations in the model, owned by the Business Systems.
  • Business Context Collaboration: The external realization of the interactions between the business and the business actors, showing the services provided by the top-level Business System (that is, the business itself), the interfaces for these services, the connections to the business actors, and the Business Entities input and output.
  • Diagrams: The diagrams in the model, owned by the Business Systems.

*Note that the business itself is the top-level component (Business System), and directly encapsulates business workers, business entities etc.

Illustrations
Tailoring
Impact of not havingThe design model is essential when considering changes to the business processes or the organization (structure, roles and responsibilities). You will be unable to reason about such changes effectively, negatively impacting the businesses ability to fulfill its goals.
Reasons for not needing

If the objective of the business modeling effort is simply to specify needed behavior (through Business Use Cases), or to formulate a Business Vision, then this artifact is not needed.

Representation OptionsUML Representation:  Model, stereotyped as <<business design>>.
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