A delegate on a recent course, Robert Lamont from NAGE, made an important distinction between drawings and models. Drawings he described as being communicative expressions and models must have full logical integrity. i.e. all pathways and connections must work and make sense. Many process diagrams draw by analysts convey conceptual information and users say:
"That the process"
but when you trace it through and it stops at a decision box and can't carry on then you realise this isn't a model.
Models have to work and be absolutely rule driven whilst drawings are produced to communicate an idea or depict an interpretaion.
Drawings are art and models are science.
Thats why some modelling tools drive us nuts with their logical integrity, i.e. delete a process or change its name on one drawing and it magically disappears everywhere in the tool!
What we are doing is trying to draw not model.So use a drawing tool like visio for drawing and a modelling tool when modelling, many analysts make this basic mistake with tools.
I thought this quite inspirational... Thanks Robert.
No comments:
Post a Comment