A
- Activity
- A process, function, or task that occurs over time and has recognizable
results. Activities combine to form business processes.
- Activity Based Costing (ABC)
- An accounting technique that allows an enterprise to determine the actual
costs associated with each product and service produced without regard to the
organizational structure.
- Activity Model
- A graphical representation of a business process that exhibits the activities
and their interdependencies to any desired level of detail. An activity model
reveals the interactions between activities in terms of inputs and outputs while
also showing the controls placed and the types of resources assigned to each
activity.
- Actor
- A specialization of a resource needed to perform an activity.
- Application Program Interface
- A set of callable routines that a programmer uses to interact with an
application.
- Architecture
- The organizational structure of a system or CSCI, identifying its components,
their interfaces, and a concept of execution among them.
- As-Is Model
- A model that represents the current stage of the organization without any
specific improvements included.
- Attribute
-
- A property or characteristic that is common to some or all of the instances
of an entity. An attribute represents the use of a domain in the context of an
entity.
- From OMG/UML: A description of a named slot in a class. Each
object of the class separator holds a value of the type.
B
- Business Architecture Modernization (BAM, formerly called SBPR)
- A contract vehicle that was sponsored by the Department of Defense. The
contract provided business process reengineering support services that focused
on the higher order strategic and management assessment functions. Reengineering
services included fully qualified BPR experts with functional knowledge in all
aspects of process engineering, state-of-the-art analytical tools, and
time-tested methodologies for comprehensive process improvement.
- Baseline
- The current condition that exists in a situation. It is usually used to
differentiate between a current and a future representation.
- Benchmarking
- A method of measuring processes against those of recognized leaders to
establish priorities and targets leading to process improvement. Benchmarking is
undertaken by identifying strategies, customers, processes, and costs to
benchmark against and their key characteristics. Benchmarking includes:
- Determining who to benchmark.
- Collecting and analyzing data from direct contact, survey, interviews,
technical journals and advertisements.
- Determining the "best of class" from each benchmark item identified.
- Evaluating the process in terms of improvement goals.
- Best Practice
- A way or method of accomplishing a business function or process that is
considered to be superior to all other known methods.
- Business Case
- A structured proposal for business process improvement that functions as a
decision package for enterprise leadership. A business case includes an analysis
of business process needs or problems, proposed solutions, assumptions and
constraints, alternatives, life cycle costs, cost/benefit analysis, and
investment risk analysis. Within DoD, a business case in called a Functional
Economic Analysis (FEA).
- Business Objectives
- Goals of the organization that can be measured in some quantitative way.
(e.g., "Decrease cost by 15%.", "Become the supplier with the lowest rate of
returned products.").
- Business Process Improvement
- The betterment of an organization's business practices through the analysis
of activities in order to reduce or eliminate non-value added activities and
costs, while at the same time maintaining or improving quality, productivity,
timeliness, and other strategic or business purposes as evidenced by measures
of performance. Also called Functional Process Improvement.
- Business Process Management (BPM)
- An extension of the work flow management movement of the 1990s to include the
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) concept of process improvement.
- Business Process Portal
- A process portal that focuses, or that is able to be focused, on solving a
particular business problem or managing a particular business function. Business
Process Portals bring the right information to the right people at the right time
to help them get their work done.
- Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
- A structured approach by all or part of an enterprise to improve the value of
its products and services while reducing resource requirements. The
transformation of a business process to achieve significant levels of improvement
in one or more performance measures relating to fitness for purpose, quality,
cycle time, and cost by using the techniques of streamlining and removing added
activities and costs. Redesign projects typically take about six months to
complete. Also referred to as Business Process Improvement, Business Process
Redesign, and Functional Process Improvement.
C
- Cause and Effect Diagram (Ishikawa Fishbone)
- This facilitation technique graphically displays a detailed list of causes
related to a problem or condition for the purpose of discovering its root
cause, not just symptoms.
- Consolidated Tool Model
- A consolidation of metamodels from the existing tools studied. Wizdom is
seeking to define and build (as proof of concept) a better repository. We have
collected the metamodels from several existing products and are currently
creating a Consolidated Tool Model by bringing these metamodels together in a
single model representation. This Consolidated Tool Model will provide us with
the schema (data layout) for a repository of existing tools. This repository will
grow as we add tools and define how to handle the rules and how they evolve into
a knowledge store.
- Continuous Process Improvement
- A policy that encourages, mandates, and/or empowers employees to find ways
to improve process and product performance measures on an ongoing basis.
- Cross Functional Process Improvement
- BPR with the goal of eliminating stove pipe operations. Processes interact
between functions as necessary to achieve business objectives. See Stove
Pipe.
D
- Data
- From Oracle publication on CASE meta model: When an application
is operating, the computer is manipulating information in the real world, (e.g.
product descriptions, pricing information, customer details). This information is
known as data.
- Data Active
- Information that has behavioral knowledge so that its representation changes
on the basis of the environment in which it is used.
- Database
- From FIPS PUB 184: A collection of interrelated data, often
with controlled redundancy, organized according to a schema to serve one or more
applications.
- Database Management Systems Object
-
- A Database Management System (DMBS) that is encapsulated as an object or
a component with a set of explicitly defined public methods or interfaces.
Such a component could be used within a compatible component architecture,
(e.g. MS COM/DCOM/ActiveX, CORBA, Java Bean Enterprise architecture).
- A DBMS such as Oracle7 or Oracle8 loosely defines internal structures it
manages as entities or objects.
- Data Model
- From FIPS PUB 184: A graphical and textual representation of
analysis that identifies the data needed by an organization to achieve its
mission, functions, goals, objectives, and strategies and to manage and rate the
organization. A data model identifies the entities, domains (attributes), and
relationships (or associations) with other data and provides the conceptual
view of the data and the relationships among data.
- Data Passive
- Static information that represents something. That something is only known
by the application that is responsible for interpreting its meaning.
- Data Repository
- A specialized database containing information about data and data
relationships. It is used to provide a common resource of standard data elements
and models.
- DoD
- Department of Defense.
- DISA
- Defense Information Systems Agency.
- Discounted Cash Flow
- A method of performing an economic analysis that takes the time value of
money into account. It is used to remove interest rates and inflation factors
from a calculation so that the results of analysis are comparable.
- Domain
-
- From Oracle publication on CASE meta model: A set of
business validation rules, format constraints, and other properties that
apply to a group of attributes. For example, a list of values, a range, a
qualified list, or any combination of these.
- From FIPS PUB 184: A named set of data values (fixed, or
possibly infinite in number) all of the same data type, upon which the actual
value for an attribute instance is drawn. Every attribute must be defined on
exactly one underlying domain. Multiple attributes may be based on the same
underlying domain.
- From DISA/CIM: A set of current and future systems that
shares a set of common requirements, capabilities, and data. A logical
grouping of related functions and objects. Often referred to as problem
domain, problem space, or problem area.
E
- Economic Analysis
- A formal method of comparing two or more alternative ways of accomplishing
a set objective given a set of assumptions and constraints and the costs and
benefits of each alternative such that the analysis will indicate the optimum
choice.
- Enterprise
- An organization that exists to perform a specific mission and achieve
associated goals and objectives.
- Entity
- The representation of a set of real or abstract things (people, objects,
places, events, ideas, etc.) that are recognized as the same type because they
share the same characteristics and can participate in the same relationships.
- Event
- A happening; the arrival of a significant point in time; a change in status
of something, or the occurrence of something external that causes the business
to react.
- Extensibility
- It is often useful to add new elements, properties, and associations into a
BPR project dictionary. This is achieved by a facility known as (user)
extensibility.
F
- Field
- From Oracle CASE Dictionary Ref Guide: A means of
implementing an item of data within a file. Field can be in character, date,
number, or other format and can be optional or mandatory.
- File
- From Oracle CASE Dictionary Ref Guide: A method of
implementing part or all of a database.
- Fixed Cost
- A cost that does not vary with the amount or degree of production; the costs
that remain if an activity or process stops.
- Function
- An action or activity proper to a person, a thing, or a particular
business unit within the organization (e.g. flying = function performed by
an airplane).
- Functional Area
- A grouping of actions or processes that are appropriate to or necessary for
accomplishing a task or related tasks. These actions or activities may be
organized on a small (micro) or large (macro) scale. For example, Admissions
includes functional areas of data entry and interviewing detainees. Admissions,
Incarceration, Community Supervision, and Release are defined as functional
areas of DPSCS in the Andersen report.
- Functional Economic Analysis (FEA)
- A technique for analyzing and evaluating alternative information system
investments and management practices. Within DoD, FEA is a business case. Also,
a document that contains a fully justified proposed improvement project with
all supporting data.
- Functional Process Improvement
- See Business Process Improvement.
I
- IDEF
- Integrated DEFinition language.
- IDEF Modeling Technique
- A combination of graphic and narrative symbols and rules designed to
capture the processes and structure of information in an organization. IDEF0
is an activity, or behavior, modeling technique. IDEF1X is a rule, or data,
modeling technique. Wizdom's founder and CEO, Dennis E. Wisnosky, was
co-founder of the U.S. Air Force ICAM (Integrated Computer Aided DEFinition)
Program and developed the program's IDEF modeling techniques. IDEF models are
often the basis for process improvement.
- Integrated Computer-Aided Manufacturing (ICAM)
- The ICAM program was helmed in the 1970s by Dennis E. Wisnosky for the
United States Air Force. The purpose of the program was to investigate whether
manufacturing technologies were delivering the value they promised. The goal
was to integrate processes on the factory floor with everything else, from
Computer Aided Design (CAD) to inventory and payroll. The ICAM hierarchial
"funnel" led to the IDEF "As-Is"/"To-Be" concept that is used in BPR projects
today.
- Integrated Computer-Aided Software Engineering (I-CASE)
- A set of software design and development tools operating with an integrated
shared repository to support the entire systems development life cycle.
- Information
-
- Knowledge derived from study.
- Knowledge of a specific event or situation: intelligence.
- A collection of facts or data: statistical information.
- The act of informing, or the condition of being informed: communication
of knowledge (e.g., "Safety instructions are provided for the information
of our passengers.").
- Computer Science. A nonaccidental signal or character used as an input
to a computer or communications system.
- A numerical measure of the uncertainty of an experimental outcome.
- Ishikawa Fishbone
- See Cause and Effect Diagram.
- ISO 9000
- Family of quality management and quality assurance standards adopted by ISO
(International Organization for Standardization, founded 1947), an
international consensus of over 110 countries. ISO 9000, first published in
1987, has been adopted as national standards in more than 80 countries.
J
- Just in time
- A policy calling for the delivery of material, products, or services at
the time they are needed in an activity or process to reduce inventory, wait
time and spoilage.
K
- Knowledge
-
- The state or fact of knowing. Familiarity, awareness, or understanding
gained through experience or study.
- Implicit - The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or
learned.
- Explicit - Specific information about something.
- Knowledge Acquisition
- The procedure in artificial intelligence of interacting with an external
source, usually a domain expert, to find and organize knowledge for the
purpose of transferring the knowledge to an expert system to solve problems.
- Knowledge Base
- From DISA/CIM: A logical collection of information in a
particular domain that has been formalized in the appropriate representation
with which to perform reasoning. A dynamic knowledge base is used to store
information relevant to solving a particular problem and varies from one
problem solving session to the next.
- Knowledge - Base of Knowledge
- This is the collection of things that are known about a body of study. For
instance, the knowledge about trauma care.
- Knowledge Base Management System
- Pro-active, event driven, rule based.
- Knowledge Management
- The leveraging of collective wisdom to increase responsiveness and
innovation.
- Knowledge Store
- The collection of the Knowledge Base of the Consolidated Tool Model, Domain
Knowledge Base, and Toolset Knowledge Base. This Store contains the data and
the "engine" necessary to access that data.
M
- Management Systems
- Software tools for supporting the modeling, analysis, and enactment of
business processes.
- Meta Model
-
- A model of a model.
- From OMG/UML: A model that describes the language for
expressing a model.
- From Oracle publication on CASE: The meta model
describes the structure of the Data Model by defining entities, attributes,
and relationships.
- Method
- From KFI/HII Methods Team: Regular and systematic means of
enterprise improvement including procedures and techniques appropriate to the
healthcare industry. A representation of a complex, real-world phenomenon such
that it can answer questions about the real-world phenomenon within some
acceptable and predictable tolerance.
O
- Object Modeling
- From DISA/CIM: The objective of object modeling is to
understand and describe an environment in terms of its objects while embracing
the concepts of abstraction, encapsulation, modularity, hierarchy, typing,
concurrence, and persistence.
- Object-Oriented (Development)
- From DISA/CIM: An approach to developing software where every
component represents an object in the real world, its attributes, and its
possible actions; objects can be grouped in classes to facilitate attribute
and action assignments.
- Organization
- The condition or manner or being organized.
- Organization Diagnostics
- The process of identifying organization problems with individuals,
processes, procedures, technology, culture, etc.
- Organize
- To arrange by systematic planning.
P
- Paradigm
- From Webster: A philosophical and theoretical framework of a
scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and
generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are
formulated.
- Performance Measure
- An indicator that can be used to evaluate quality, cost, or cycle time
characteristics of an activity or process usually against a target or standard
value.
- Portal
- An internet browser combined with a search engine.
- Present Value
- The current value of a future series of cash flow given a discount factor
or interest value. Used to evaluate alternative investments.
- Process
-
- A systematic series of actions directed to some end.
- A continuous action, operation, or series of changes taking place in a
definite manner, (e.g. getting to a destination = process performed by
pilot).
- Process Model
- Also called Activity Model. A graphic representation of a business process
that exhibits the activities and their interdependencies that make up the
business process to any desired level of detail. An activity model reveals the
interactions between activities in terms of inputs and outputs while showing
the controls placed and the types of resources assigned to each activity.
- Process Portal
- Software that focuses the user of the Portal to the explicit knowledge
required to solve his/her particular problem or deal with a particular
situation or series of events. Changes Implicit Knowledge to Explicit Knowledge.
Q
- Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
- A requirements identification analysis, flow down, and tracking technique.
It focuses on quality and communication to translate customer needs into
product-and-process-design specifics. Also known as the "house of quality".
R
- Redesign
- Business Process Redesign (BPR). The transformation of a business process
to achieve significant levels of improvement in one or more performance
measures relating to fitness for purpose, quality, cycle times, and cost by
using the techniques of streamlining and removing non-value added activities
and costs. Redesign projects typically take about six months to complete.
- Reengineering
- See Business Process Reengineering (BPR), Redesign.
- Repository
- A mechanism for storing any information that has to do with the definition
of a system at any point in its life cycle. Repository services would typically
be provided for extensibility, recovery, integrity, naming standards, and a
wide variety of other management functions.
- Resource
- An object in competition with another like object. A scarce object.
S
- Scenario
- A sequence of operations carried out in some order to produce a known
result.
- Stereotype
- A new kind of model element defined within the model based on an existing
kind of the model element. Stereotypes may extend the semantics of the model
but not the structure of preexisting meta model classes.
- Stove Pipe
- Term commonly used to reflect that a business function operates in a
vertically integrated manner but does not interact efficiently or effectively
with related functions, (e.g. Human Resources does not work with training).
- Strategic Business Process Reengineering (SBPR)
- A former contract vehicle sponsored by the Department of Defense. The
contract provided business process reengineering support services that focused
on the higher order strategic and management assessment functions.
Reengineering services included fully qualified BPR experts with functional
knowledge in all aspects of process engineering, state-of-the-art analytical
tools, and time-tested methodologies for comprehensive process improvement.
T
- Table
- A relational table (composed of columns).
- To-Be Model
- Models that are the result of applying improvement opportunities to the
current (As-Is) business environment.
- Topic Area
- A cross-functional grouping of business areas (grouping of processes). Topic
areas include, but are not limited to, Admissions and Classification,
Communications, Custody, Employment and Education, Services, Substance Abuse.
- Total Quality Management/Total Quality Leadership (TQM/TQL)
- Both a philosophy and a set of guiding principles that represent the
foundation of the continuously improving organization. TQM/TQL is the
application of quantitative methods and human resources to improve the
material and services supplied to an organization, all the processes within an
organization, and the degree to which the needs of the customer are met, now
and in the future. TQM/TQL integrates fundamental management techniques,
existing improvement efforts, and technical tools under a disciplined approach
focused on continuous improvement.
- Trigger
- The precedence with respect to time between activity types.
U
- Unified Modeling Language (UML)
- An Object Management Group (OMG) standard for modelling software artifacts.
Using UML, developers and architects can make a blueprint of a project much
like ERD diagrams are used for relational design.
- UML Connection
- A logical link between model elements. May be structural, dynamic, or
possessive.
- UML Diagram View
- The workspace area where the UML diagrams are displayed.
- UML Element
- A model object of any type - class, component, node, objector, etc.
- UML Forward Engineering
- The process of generating source code from the UML model.
- UML Package
-
- A logical container of model elements. Groups elements and may also
contain other packages.
- From OMG/UML: A package is a grouping of model
elements. Packages themselves may be nested within other packages. A
package may contain subordinate packages as well as other kinds of model
elements. All kinds of UML model elements can be organized into packages.
Note that packages own model elements and are the basis for configuration
control, storage, and access control. Each element can be directly owned by
a single package, so the package hierarchy is a strict tree. However,
packages can reference other packages, modeled by using one of the
stereotypes «import» and «access» of permission
dependency, so the usage network is a graph. Other kinds of dependencies
between packages usually imply that one or more dependencies among the
elements exists. A package is shown as a large rectangle with a small
rectangle (a “tab”) attached to the left side of the top of the
large rectangle. It is the common folder icon.
- UML Role
- The named detail and rules associated with one end of an association. May
indicate name, constraints, cardinality, and collection details.
- UML Use Case Estimation
- The technique of estimating project size and complexity based on the number
of use cases and their difficulty.
- Use Case
- From OMG/UML: The specification of sequences of actions, including variant
sequences and error sequences that a system, subsystem, or class can perform
by interacting with outside actors. In practice, each Use Case has a
description that describes the functionality that will be built in the proposed
system. A Use Case may "include" another Use Case's functionality or "extend"
another Use Case with its own behavior. An example of a Use Case is "Manage HR".
Each Use Case includes:
- Requirements: correspond to the functional specifications found in
structured methodologies.
- Constraints: formal rules and limitations that a Use Case operates under,
and includes pre-, post-, and invariant conditions.
- Scenarios: formal descriptions of the flow of events that occur during a
Use Case instance. These are usually described in text and correspond to a
textual representation of the Sequence Diagram.
V
- Value-Adding Activity
- An activity in a process that adds value to an output, product, or
service; that is, the activity merits the cost of the resources it consumes
in production.
- Variable Cost
- A cost element that varies directly with the amount of product or service
produced by an activity or cost. Variable costs go to zero if the activity
stops.
W
- Workflow
- A system thats elements are activities related to one another by a
trigger relation and triggered by external events that represent a business
process starting with a commitment and ending with the termination of that
commitment.
- Workflow Management System
- Integrated software tools for supporting the modeling, analysis, and
enactment of business processes.
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