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Innovator or Business Analystsan agile Business Process modelling toolAn InDetail Paper by Bloor ResearchAuthor : David NorfolkPublish date : October 2011

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Innovator 11 for BusinessAnalysts is an effective way toexploit BPMN in practice, as it isfocussed on the whole BusinessAnalyst role (not just on BPMN)and is part of a larger family oftools that can re-use and extendits modelsDavid Norolk


3/211 2011 Bloor ResearchA Bloor InDetail Paper

Innovator for Business Analystsan agile Business Process modelling tool

Executive summary

These days, almost all business processesare partly automatedthe business runs onsoftware. For too long, however, developmentof automated business systems has residedin an IT silo. Too often systems are developedrightbut arent the right systems; that is,they arent systems that satisfy a particularbusiness need, effectively and completely.

Business Process Modelling allows us to beginto address this issue. It focuses on under-standing the business process and optimisingit for business outcomes, driven by business

managements strategic vision for the busi-ness. In some ways, this marks a return to theoriginal systems analysis concept, in which awhole business process was analysed, a con-text diagram identied its inputs and outputs,and a man-machine boundary identied a sub-set of its sub-processes for automation. Themantra in those days (the 1970s/80s) was thatsystems analysis could often tell you enoughabout what could be improved in a process tomake buying more technology unnecessary.

In essence, modelling provides an effectiveway of understanding and controlling the

complexity of business processes and systemsconsidered as a whole (not just the compu-terised parts of the system). Models provide alingua franca, allowing all stakeholders in thebusiness process to communicate effectively inpursuit of a business goal.

In the past, nevertheless, modelling often failedto live up to these promises due to a lack ofeffective standards; difculty in building andsharing models (even with modelling tools,building a model was often as difcult as writ-ing code; and model artefacts had to be retyped

if they were used anywhere). The root problemwas that modelling was taken over by the ITgroup, which focussed on technology modelsrather than business models. The net resultwas that business modelling, if used at all, wasused informally, models werent checked forcompleteness and consistency (a valuable aid toearly defect removal) and business models rap-idly became out date and didnt reect the op-erational business (or its IT systems) properly.

These days, in the 21st century, these issueshave mostly been addressed. Standards areavailable for business modelling as well as for

model-driven development. The Object Manage-ment Group (OMG)s Business Process Model-ling Notation (BPMN) provides an open-standard

notation for building business process modelsthat, together with a family of OMG model-drivendevelopment standards around UML, allowsthese models to be used as part of the develop-ment of partly-automated business systems, ifthat is what the business wants.

Moreover, increasing business complexity(driven by globalisation, Internet commerceand loosely coupled service-oriented architec-tures) has made the use of models for manag-ing business complexity and business processoptimisation almost essential.

Luckily, agile new tools, typied by Innovatorfor Business Analysts, have emerged, whichmake building, maintaining and using modelseasier than ever before. Automated validationof these models enables errors in understand-ing to be identied early on and addressed;thus removing defects before they impact thebusiness or get set in stone in the computercode behind an automated system.

Institutionalising business process modellingand exploiting it effectively for optimising andimproving the business is facilitated by good

tool support for modelling, although thesetools are still only technology enablers. Peoplehave to understand the need for modelling andbuy in to it in practice; and modelling has to be-come part of the organisations process. Still,once you do get people and process on board,a good tool helps to institutionalise modellingand remove barriers to its use. A good model-ling tool will offer:

Low cost provisioning/de-provisioning op-tions (that is, SaaS delivery and/or an evalu-ation tool with near full functionality).

Timely support for changes to any ap-propriate standards (although any stabletool will lag behind the leading edge of thestandards).

Ease of use and the automatic formattingof diagrams for readability (the removal ofcrossing lines and so on) so that it is as easyto draw neat diagrams in the tool as on paper.

Automated (and customisable) validity, con-sistency and completeness checks (earlyremoval of errors in the understanding of

business processes is a key advantage ofprocess modelling).


4/212 2011 Bloor Research A Bloor InDetail Paper


Executive summary

Integration with a set of tools that addressother aspect of the business model (suchas data structures), via different views intoa single model.

Production (optionally) of executable modelsfor operational use and/or links to tools thatcan generate executable code, thus ensuringthat the model and the business are kept insynchronisation.

Support for team working, with several teamssharing the same model, without conict.

MIDs Innovator 11 (Version 11 Release 4)for Business Analysts, distributed by ApteroSolutions worldwide and in the UK, satisesthese requirements pretty well. It is impor-tant to distinguish tools like Innovator fromtools such as Visio or PowerPoint, which candraw pictures of models but which cant auto-matically check models for completeness andconsistency, nor can they transform them intoanything the business can use operationally.

It is also important to emphasise that BPMNmodelling is not an end in itself but merely a

means to an end: which is business processoptimisation; or, the better management ofeffective business outcomes. A useful BPMNmodelling tool, such as Innovator, supportsthe business, not just modelling it; and hasfeatures such as logical views and XMI-basedmetadata import/export, so that its assets canbe re-used elsewhere.

Fast acts

Innovator 11 (Version 11 R4) for BusinessAnalysts is a German product, from MID GmbH,

but is distributed and supported in the UK byAptero Solutions, a company with a strongprovenance (many of its key personal comefrom the well-respected Select developmenttools company).

Innovator for Business Analysts is a BPMNmodelling tool that addresses the needs of theBusiness Analyst role as a whole rather thanjust enabling BPMN modelling.

Innovator for Business Analysts is part of alarger Innovator tool-set supporting other roles(such as Software and Database Architects),

with all these tools sharing a common model.

MID is committed to supporting the OMGsBPMN standard.

A free Personal Edition of the tool is availablefor training and proofs of concept.

Key fndings

In the opinion of Bloor Research, the followingrepresent the key facts of which prospectiveusers should be aware:

Innovator 11 (Version 11 R4) for BusinessAnalysts is an effective OMG-standardBPMN modelling tool. It supports most ofthe current OMG BPMN 2.0 standard and

is committed to supporting updates to thestandard as development permits.

This tool targets a role: the Business Ana-lyst. This means that it is more than just aBPMN modelling tool and supports, forexample, basic UML functionality as neededfor this role.

This tool supports the formalisation of therelationships between business roles andsoftware models.

This tool provides innovative features such as

process animation (an animated representa-tion of complex paths through a process) anda whiteboard (which allows different modelsand even teams to be active in one diagram),which can facilitate user buy-in and collabo-rative modelling.

A free version of Innovator for BusinessAnalysts, with reduced functionality, is avail-able for stand-alone proof of concept busi-ness modelling.

The tool is also part of a family of tools (in-

cluding, for instance, Innovator for DatabaseArchitects and Innovator for SoftwareArchitects) and which can share a commonmodel via a metadata repository. This shouldhelp support development of effective busi-ness systems instead of mere models.

This is a German tool but is being distributedand supported in the UK by Aptero Solutions,which is also developing innovative plug-ins for Innovator, supporting, for example,a reusable asset library. There is already aplug-in for SAP, to help you import the SAPprocesses from the SAP Solution Manager

and customise them to your own processes.




Executive summary

The bottom line

Standardisation of BPMN by the OMG and anincreasing need to understand and manageincreasing business complexity has led to arenewed interest in modelling business proc-esses with BPMN.

Innovator 11 (Version 11 Release 4) forBusiness Analysts is an effective way to ex-ploit BPMN in practice, as it is focussed onthe whole Business Analyst role (not just onBPMN) and is part of a larger family of tools

that can re-use and extend its models.

Bloor Research recommends that any compa-ny should consider exploring BPMN modellingfor business process analysis and optimisa-tion. The free Personal Edition of Innovatorfor Business Analysts could easily support asignicant proof of concept.

Even building purely business models, organi-sations can expect to improve the efciencyand effectiveness of their business processesas the model claries issues and poor process;once this becomes part of how we do thingshere for an organisation, the enterprise ver-sion of Innovator for Business Analysts ap-pears to provide all the functionality necessary.Innovator then offers the possibility of buildingparts of the model as automated operationalprocesses. This is a real bonus as a model than

can, in part, be transformed into automation isa model that is truly part of the business andwill be maintained as the business evolves.




Innovator for Business Analysts

Product implementation

Innovator 11 (Version 11 R4) for BusinessAnalysts runs on Windows 7 (the earliest ver-sion supported is Windows XP SP3) and usesits own database. It requires Microsoft .NET3.5 with Service Pack 1. It is not particularlydemanding of resources (the Personal Editiontakes up just under 1Gb and can be installedfrom a USB drive onto an average netbook andworks well-enough for training), although apowerful PC and (in particular) a large screenis recommended.

The Personal Edition doesnt support the UMLfeatures (Class Diagrams, State Diagramsfor analysing business objects, Use Casediagrams); mask ow diagrams (a BPMNextension for requirements modelling), re-quirements, the collaboration features (multi-user access, real-time collaboration, userand rights management); and has no hotlinesupport. Its models cant be imported intothe full-featured Enterprise Edition. It has anunlimited license.

The Professional Edition adds the features

omitted from the Personal Edition, with theexception of multi-user collaboration support.Theres also a 60-day demo licence, although thePersonal Edition makes this a bit superuous.

The Enterprise Edition supports all of the In-novator for Business Analysts features, includ-ing more complete integration with MicrosoftOfce. A 60-day demo license is available.

All versions can be downloaded from http://www.mid.de/en/products/innovator-for-busi-ness-analysts/downloads.html.

Innovator integrates strongly with the Micro-soft Ofce environment (an Innovator OfceIntegration add-on to Microsoft Word, whichneeds its own license and Word 2007 or higher,is available for the Enterprise Edition), whichseems to be a signicant part of MIDs market-ing strategy. Enterprise users, who are usuallyfamiliar with MS Ofce, can add requirementsand business rules to process models throughMicrosoft Word. As Innovator provides a spe-cialised editor for each role, keeps externaldocuments synchronised with the model, andprovides notication to appropriate people

when anything changes, this should effectivelyencourage stakeholder participation. Gener-ally, even with the Personal and Professionaleditions, Innovator works just like any other

Ofce-based tool for editing, copy & paste,printing and so on.

We applaud this approach, as we believe thatthe participation of all stakeholders in themodelling process is vital and life is too shortfor the important business stakeholders tolearn a new interface. It is perhaps a pity thatOpen Ofce isnt supported explicitly (we dontthink that tying an organisations cultural tool-set to a major commercial vendor is a greatidea) but the MS Ofce interface is reasonablysimilar to the Open Ofce interface in practice,

in our experience, although some of the inte-gration features wont work with Open Ofce.

A SaaS-hosted implementation of Innovatorisnt available at present. This is, perhaps, apity; but the availability of the Personal Editionfor training, evaluation and proofs of conceptprobably renders SaaS less of an issue. Inany case, MID tells us that it will have a SaaSversion of the Innovator repository availablein 2012. This will mean that users who wantto get started quickly will just have to installsome 40 Mb of client application; no data isstored locally and the repository (including

conguration services and consultancy, ifneeded) is hosted by MID.

Architecture

MID Innovator is a suite of tools that bringstogether standards-based business processmodelling and software modelling. It currentlyconsists of 3 independent standalone model-ling toolsInnovator for Business Analysts,Innovator for Database Architects, Innovatorfor Software Architects (supplemented withInnovator Ofce Integration)all sharing com-

mon models, held on the shared Team Server.

Figure1: MID Architecture

Innovator Team Server

Innovator

for

Database

Architects

Innovator

for

Software

Architects

Innovator

for

Business

Analysts

Functionality

Business-driven IT

Although all the modules in the Innovator setare interesting, and it is signicant and impor-tant that theyre there, this report just concen-trates on Innovator for Business Analysts. This
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could be an important catalyst for business-driven IT (which is really just IT which consid-ers all of its stakeholders and is directed bythe stakeholders who are paying the bills). Itmodels business processes, requirements,task ows, business objects and use cases,using (mainly) the OMG standards BusinessProcess Modelling Notation (BPMN 2.0) andUnied Modelling Language (UML 2.1).

At Bloor, we believe that a model-driven ap-proach to improving and optimising businessprocesses (which may not always involve au-

tomating them, although it often will), with afocus on business outcomes, is an effective partof better business governance. That is, it is animportant part of achieving business outcomes,with delivered business value, without waste.

BPMN and UML

Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) isa vendor-independent open standard, maintainedby the OMG (Object Management Group), for de-scribing business process models in a businessprocess diagram (BPD). These diagrams usefamiliar owcharting techniques and are similarto activity diagrams in the Unied Modelling Lan-

guage (UML), another OMG open standard.

BPMN (like UML 2) is based on a proper under-lying metamodel (written in the OMGs MOF),which ensures a measure of completeness andconsistency, and is intended to support busi-ness process management for a range of bothtechnology- and business-oriented stakehold-ers. It can be used for abstracted, high-levelmodels that are intuitive for business users, aswell as also accommodating complex processsemantics at a level suitable for process execu-tion. It is important to distinguish a model with

inherent structure from a mere picture, such ascan easily be produced in Visio or PowerPoint.

The BPMN specication includes mappingsto the non-graphical OASIS Web ServicesBusiness Process Execution Language (WSB-PEL) standard. However, it is worth repeatingthat although BPMN models can be taken toa level of detail needed to support automatedbusiness processes, they need not be. BPMNfocuses on business processes generally; it isemphatically not intended just for processesrunning on a particular technology or just forthe needs of the IT group. Nevertheless, the

critical success factor for BPMN modellingis that it is embedded in an organisation andused to support all aspects of model-drivenbusiness process optimisation.

For example, although BPMN is business-focussed, the IT group could well nd businessprocess models useful to help it to ensurethat it builds the right IT systems, as well asbuilding them right. In essence, BPMN, usedproperly and with appropriate tools, supportseffective knowledge transfer between all of thestakeholders in a business. Achieving this willneed good management, focussing on the as-sociated people and process issues, not just ontools and technology.

Nevertheless, it is always worth noting that

raw BPMN, in all its power, no matter howbusiness-focussed, is often not particularly tothe liking of business stakeholders in practice.It is important that BPMN modelling toolssupport stakeholder-specic views into themodels, support simplied dialects of BPMNin a formal way and generally remove barriersbetween business users and the models. Webelieve that Innovator for Business Analystsmakes a reasonably good attempt at achiev-ing this (we note, in particular, the whiteboarddiagram and process animation; see below).

However, some business users will see any

attempt to dene and improve what they doas an intrusion or a threat and may use theneed to learn even a user-friendly tool as anexcuse for not getting involved. BPMN-awarebusiness analysts should never underestimatethe investment needed in selling modellingand its benets to the business as a precursorto success, just because the benets of BPMNmodelling are obvious to themselves.

Collaborative modelling and team working

Innovator supports collaborative develop-ment of BPMN business models; that is to

say, teams can reuse each others process orsub-process models. Obviously, this has tobe controlled and currently, this is through afairly simple ownership mechanism. Innovatordisplays re-used processes, but in view onlymode; and when the process owner changes areused process those changes are propagatedto all places where the process is being re-used. Of course, if the changes radically affectthe process functional description, this mightbreak models relying on the changing process;wed like to see something more sophisticatedaround full conguration management in laterreleases, although the latest Innovator release

has already introduced versioning on the serv-er, needing just a mouse click and assignationof a version name. Conguration managementsounds like overkill until you think about the





models driving the implementation of businessprocess; together with the reality of businesschange, where migration from old process tonew process may take several years, depart-ment by department, and you may still beoptimising an old process after the migrationto a new process has started.

Innovator has a whiteboard diagram, which isprobably its key innovation in the collaborationarea as far as its users are concerned. Thewhiteboard allows you to display several ac-tive models in the same space, with different

teams owning parts of the whiteboard.

Just enough modeling or requirements

Innovator doesnt force users to maintainheavyweight models if they are not useful. Forexample, one large telecomms company is at-taching text specications (in Word) to modelelements in order to structure them: require-ments then become snippets of text on modelelements. This is an example of just enoughmodelling being usefulyou dont need to goall the way down to the OMGs Object ConstraintLanguage if mere text, with a model providingstructure, is enough to be useful.

Reporting

An important metric for any modelling tool isusage, including usage well outside of the coremodelling space. Ideally you want the business(certainly not the IT group) to own the tool. Thisis facilitated by, say, the CEOs secretary usingit to print organisation charts for his/her boss,rather than asking someone else to do it, andInnovators ofce-like user interface is an im-portant factor here.

It is also facilitated by easy connections; for ex-

ample, a business rule in a Word document canbe easily assigned to an element in a businessprocess by a drag & drop interaction; and thena change in the rule denition in the documentwill automatically appear in the business pro-cess. This traceability helps to embed modelsin the general business process and makesmanaging change more effective.

Of course, Innovator also has a exible docu-mentation interface, which gives users role-specic views on the underlying models; andit generates customisable Microsoft Word andHTML reports, for conventional and web (e.g.

Intranet) distribution. This facilitates the useof consistent document styles, even acrossmultiple teams.

Regulatory supportMID sees the changing regulatory environ-ment (especially Solvency II, which seems tomandate maintenance of process models) as akey driver for the greater adoption of businessmodelling. Models help to bridge the commu-nications gap between business stakeholders,auditors, regulators etc. and technologists.

This needs a tool that provides:

Version management, at least.

A secure audit trail for changes made to themodel.

Strong access security.

Managed access by different stakeholders.

Innovator for Business Analysts meets theserequirements pretty well now, although futuredevelopments will no doubt improve supportfor regulatory functions further. For example,Innovator has always provided good supportfor versioning. However the concept of changesets (introduced in Version 11 Release 4)

provides a more effective audit trail by provid-ing the possibility of grouping changes to themodel (by objective, say) and allowing the userto annotate the change set with a descriptionof its purpose, thus providing a complete andeffective audit trail for models. Always beingable to nd out who changed what in a model,and when, makes collaboration more effective,and might be essential when a model is part ofa compliance story.

The promised future support for congurationmanagement will extend this further, although

were not sure that the need to merge lesfrom an external conguration managementsystem (an inefciency Innovator claims toavoid currently) is all that much of an overheadin practice.

Innovator does appear to have a decent se-curity model and manages access to modelsby access rights, roles and groups of similarusers. Collaboration between regulators andbusiness analysts is also well supported; dif-ferent stakeholders can share models at thesame time, even if they are in different loca-tions, which mitigate the overheads of sharing

information using email.





QA, communication and reviewAn important aspect of modelling is its poten-tial for identifying errors in peoples under-standing of processes or conicts in differentstakeholders views. Also, of course, usefulmodels need to be correct, as far as is neces-sary for the uses being made of them (pursuingaccuracy beyond the point where it is useful isa waste of resources, of course).

A review mode is provided to allow stake-holders to review processes.

Models can be annotated (in a similar way tohow one would annotate a Word document),so issues can be captured immediately, asthe review proceeds.

These annotations are managed by theInnovator server, so they are accessible toall the collaborating stakeholders.

One of the problems with reviewing a modelis that most ordinary people nd it boring andmiss issues. Innovator addresses this with An-imator for business processes, which enablesan animated representation of complex paths

through a process. This just requires a simplepath denition and the animation zooms auto-matically into sub-processes.

Innovators whiteboard feature could also havea useful place in the review process, especiallyat the system level, where you would expectseveral different teams and stakeholders tobe involved. There used to be some, not veryserious, limitations to the whiteboard: for ex-ample, organisation charts could be added butthe assignment of organisation chart elementssuch as roles to pools, lanes & processes

wasnt displayed, although manually addeddependencies can be displayed. Removingsuch limitations is a key improvement in Inno-vator version 11, Release 4, and the whiteboardnow supports full visualisation of both UMLand the relationship of conceptual to physicaldatabase design.

Customising Innovator or Business Analysts

We are in two minds about customising mod-elling tools. Of course, it is good to be able tominimise any barriers to adoption (but Innova-tor already has an Ofce look and feel) and youdont want your tool to drive your process just

because it is too inexible to cope with whatyou want to do. Low-cost cosmetic changes tosuit your culture can also help prospective us-ers buy in to using the tool.

On the other hand, customisation takes upresources that are better used for address-ing business optimisation and can provide acontinuing overhead every time a new versionof the tool is released. Bending the tool to theprocess only makes sense if your particularprocess is giving you a competitive edge; forroutine process, you might as well adopt what-ever commodity process is built into the tool.We believe that just enough customisation,used only where it delivers real benet, is thebest approach.

Luckily, MID seems to have got the balanceabout right for Innovator for Business Analysts:

Simple BPMN dialects can be dened, usingsimple declarative modication of both mod-els and notations. This can ease adoptionand extend usage to wider and less-involvedstakeholders, thus easing institutionalisa-tion of modelling.

For advanced users, the Innovator API canbe accessed by scripts written in Java or any.NET language.

Innovator has a congurable validationengine; you may need extra validation for,e.g., matching gateways that are needed forautomated execution of business processmodels (BPMN doesnt mandate sufcientdetail for execution but a lot of BPMN v 2.0is about making sure execution is possibleif needed).

The Innovator client can be extended withdownloadable plug-Ins.

Product support

There is an active Innovator support forum athttp://www.mid.de/en/support/forum.htmlif(in practice) you speak German, although nodoubt English speakers could contribute (Ger-man speakers are usually better linguists thanAmericans or the English). Theres a usefulEnglish language blog at http://blog.apteroso-lutions.com/.

MID offers consulting services and hotlinesupport (both email and phone) from its web-site. It also runs the MID Academy, offering arich training resource, from http://www.mid.de/en/academy/mid-academy.html. Aptero

provides a useful series of BPMN, UML andAgile training courses, in English, at http://www.apterosolutions.co.uk/training.html andalso supports the MID solutions it resells.
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An academic license and support is availableeffectively, freefor academic organisationssuch as universities and their students; see,for example, http://www.apterosolutions.co.uk/academic-support.html. We think this isextremely forward-looking; in conjunction withthe Personal Edition, MID is nurturing, withluck, a new generation of business analystsusing modelling as a matter of course

Dierentiators

MIDs biggest competitors for Innovator, inpractice, are the do nothing option (adopted

by people who dont understand the need formodelling) and ordinary ofce productivitytools. The most used modelling tools (in reality,these are just tools for visualising models) areprobably textual tools like Word and pictorialtools such as Visio. However, a picture (even averbal one) is not a model. Innovator is basedon formally dened models that have struc-ture, which means they can be automaticallychecked for completeness and consistencyand, ideally, transformed into an automatedsystem/subsystem. For example:

Unlike with Visio diagrams, with Innovator

BPMN, renaming a process element re-names the element in any process where thiselement occurs, even when another team, ata different location, is working on the model.

Innovator supports relationships; for exam-ple: a lane in a process can be assigned toan organisational unit.

Innovator provides automated model checksthat validate the model, helping users toavoid making mistakes and introducing in-consistencies across teams and users.

In terms of other proper modelling tools,MIDs differentiator is that it is more than justa BPMN modelling tool but one that addressesa whole role, that of business analyst. It there-fore has an Ofce look-and-feel and extendsBPMN and UML modelling with powerfuladditional diagrams such as organisationalcharts (which can be connected with businessprocesses), user interface ows and informa-tion modelling.

Innovator has a properly modular architecture;add-ins for integration with Ofce and SAP are

a symptom of this.

Supporting products

Innovator for Business Analysts is, essentially,an agile, customisable tool that can be ex-tended with add-ins. At present, there are twoadd-ins addressing existing de facto standardbusiness technology environments. The SAPSolution Manager plug-in lets you compareboth SAP-standard and customer-specicprocesses using BPMN models; this facilitatesthe customisation of SAP standard solutions tocustomer-specic needs. It also helps you visu-alise how the SAP Solution Manager workows

can support your own business processes.

Innovator Ofce Integration lets you create,update and maintain requirements from withinInnovator models, using Word, the de factobusiness ofce suite standard. Wed probablylike an add-in for Open Ofce toobut theresno technology barrier to providing this, if thereis sufcient demand.

Innovator for Business Analysts is built as partof a complementary suite of modular tools on acommon platform, sharing a common model/repository and each targeting different roles:

Innovator for Software Architects/InnovatorObject provides component-based object-oriented development based on the OMGstandard Unied Modelling Language (UML2.1). Using this, an IT developer can take aBPMN process from a business analyst andmodel its use cases in UML for a serviceimplementation directly connected to theBPMN process, thus bridging the gap be-tween business and IT. Similarly, businessobject models can be linked to the designmodels used by IT. Innovator for Software

Architects is based on Innovator Objectaproven IT-oriented UML 2 tool.

Innovator for Database Architects deliversexible data modelling using the OMGsInformation Management Metamodel(IMM); Entity-Relationship Modelling (ERM)and Structured Entity-Relationship Model-ling (SERM). It is a full-featured databasemodelling tool, supporting the usualenterprise DBMSs: IBM DB2/Informix,Oracle DB/MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server,etc. It supports both reverse and forwardengineering: in other words you can imple-

ment a physical database from Innovator or
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capture information (it supports the ISO IDEFIX notation for physicaldatabase description) as a basis for future database changes, froman existing physical database. Conceptual data modelling usingstandard notations (such as ER/Chen and UML) is supported and MIDsees this as an opportunity to exploit Oracles dropping of supportfor conceptual modelling, which MID believes has left some Oraclecustomers rather unhappy. The conceptual models can be viewed invarious ways, suited to different stakeholders, meaning that thesestakeholders can use a familiar user interface and employ the in-formation in Innovator to support enterprise architecture, businessintelligence and master data management activities. Innovator canalso map conceptual models onto physical designs and compare as-is physical database designs with should be and future designs,

thus assisting with change and impact management.




Customer stories/case studies

As is common withthe nancial servicesand similar organi-sations that make upMIDs customer base,the customers involvedin the case studies be-low asked to remainanonymous.

A translation case study, rom pictures tomodels

Background

Phil Webb of Aptero Solutions, MIDs world-wide distributor/partner, has been workingwith an international banking group to improveits modelling and development processes.

The problem

This organisation has invested consider-able resources in producing a large number ofMicrosoft Visio process diagrams, which visu-

ally describe its processes. Each diagram iscomplemented with a separately-maintainedMicrosoft Word document, which holds a de-tailed step-by-step process description, and in-cludes documentation of the roles representedby the various process lanes. This has beenprofessionally implemented and maintained,as the Visio pictures and Word documents arepretty much in synchronisation, even down tounique identiers for each step and gateway.However, this involves a signicant overheadfor its process analysis activities, although theinvestment need not be wasted, as it allowseasier migration to more powerful and cost-

effective modelling tools.

The solution

Using the public APIs of Microsoft Visio,Microsoft Word and Innovator for BusinessAnalysts, Aptero Solutions has been able tobuild a Visio-to-BPMN migration utility, whichtranslates pictures of process models in Visioto be valid Innovator BPMN models.

Webb is fully aware that some people will seethis as merely moving pictures from a familiarenvironment to diagrams in a less familiar one,

but he maintains that the organisation will notonly see benets for its process analysts andtheir process users, in the longer term, butalso an immediate gain in both accuracy andlower maintenance overheads, from use of aproper modelling tool with automated com-pleteness and consistency checks.

Benefts

As a result of migrating from Visio pictures toInnovator BPMN models:

Both the pictorial and descriptive informa-tion is in one place.

The visualisations and textual descriptionsare tied together through Innovatorwheremodel elements, with descriptive information

and links to other elements, are subsequentlyrepresented on diagrams.

Analysts and process users can navigate be-tween process workows, from the calling ofa process on one diagram to the full visualrepresentation of that process on another.

Processes can be rolled out to process usersthrough Innovator itself, or as a generatedand customised HTML website, or throughan integrated process report in a generatedWord or PDF document.

This brings all stakeholders together andmakes process improvement (optimisation)both easier and more error-free.

According to Webb, a signicant benet of themigration was that we were able to highlightproblems with the original Visio diagrams andWord descriptions, through Innovators neatannotationsopen the BPMN diagram andthe annotations show you where and what theproblems are, whether they are the result ofincorrectly linked connectors in Visio or mi-snamed items where matching descriptions

could not be found in Word.

Processes are now dened once, which makesrenaming or changing a description a simpleactivity, and this encourages agility. Textualdescriptions of processes and process steps(tasks in BPMN-speak) can be viewed just byclicking on the process or task, rather thanhaving to refer to both Visio picture and Worddescription. Roles can be modelled in an or-ganisation chart and associated to lanes orprocesses; as Webb says, imagine clickingon your role in an org chart and being able to

immediately navigate to the processes or tasksthat are the responsibility of your role.

Conclusion

The migration makes life easier for all involvedand, if the people and process aspects of BPMNmodelling are managed properly, this shouldfacilitate greater buy in to the modelling proc-ess, more use of the models by a wider com-munity, and a better return on the investmentin modelling. Webb concludes that, Visio isperhaps one of the most commonly used toolsfor drawing process workows. However, Iaim to continue to persuade people that using

a BPMN modelling tool like Innovator insteadcan make a signicant improvement to thecosts and usefulness of building and distribut-ing valid process descriptions.





An IT process management case study

Background

A manager in the Computer Science depart-ment of a large German insurance companytold us about starting the journey with Innova-tor for Business Analysts.

This company manages property and casualtyinsurance, life insurance, health insurance andhome loans for private clients, together withmotor insurance, private liability householdinsurance and occupational pensions. It has

over 9.5 million customers and around 8,500employees, so it is a large enterprise, whereeffective process governance is at a premium.

The problem

The Computer Science department has beenengaged on a 2-year project analysing IT proc-esses in the interests of better governanceand has produced extensive Word, PowerPointand Visio documentation. It now wants to con-vert this into more structured, maintainabledocumentation.

The solution

Innovator for Business Analysts was chosenfor this project after a comparison exercisewith other tools:

The organisation already had other Innovatortools, so they were familiar and there is po-tential for future integration (although thishasnt happened yet).

BPMN modelling promises to be a future-proof standard.

An early start on productive modelling with

Innovator for Business Analysts is possi-bletheres no 12 week barrier while youput underlying structures into the tool andget to understand its workings.

Little up-front training is needed forInnovator for Business Analysts (its Ofcelook and feel helps but isnt the only aspectof this).

The organisation now has its structured docu-mentation in Innovator for Business Analysts;it can standardise and evaluate its models andlook for opportunities for process improvement.

For example, it has a matrix of work groups toprocess relationships and can optimise this.

It also sees a potential for bringing IT proc-ess in line with business process, for generalgovernancebut this hasnt started yet. Theorganisation has a strong departmental struc-ture and the Computer Science department hassubmitted a proposal to senior managementfor extending the use of Innovator for Busi-ness Analysts to business departments but thishasnt been accepted as we write this. There is ageneral feeling that business process manage-ment is already being satisfactorily managed bydifferent parts of the organisation anyway.

BeneftsStructured, maintainable documentation isnow available as a basis for process improve-ment/optimisation in the Computer Sciencedepartment.

A proof of concept for Innovator for BusinessAnalysts is now available as a basis for pos-sible wider deployment in future, and possibleintegration with other MID Innovator tools.

In essence, Innovator for Business Analystshelps to improve IT governance and this projecthas improved both this and the organisations

understanding of the use of tools such as MIDInnovator for Business Analysts. Our contact,for instance, understands that, you must al-ways consider the level you want to work atwere working at a high (ITIL process) level anddelivering something useful, but more detailedmodels, for code generation etc., could be use-fuljust not yet.

Conclusion

Innovator for Business Analysts can deliver im-mediate benets to a large, mature organisa-tion and provides lots of opportunities to exploit

both the tool and, more important, businessprocess modelling. This organisation claimssuccess from using Innovator for BusinessAnalysts to improve the structure and qualityof its high-level IT process documentation asa basis for process improvement. The tool isbeing used within the IT department and itsees possibilities for expansion of the tool intothe business arena, although whether thereare sufcient benets to justify doing this areunder discussion with the groups responsible.

In a mature organisation there are lots ofpeople (cultural), process and organisational

barriers to expanding its use. Implement-ing business process modelling for process





improvement across the whole organisation might be useful, but it isa journey and you must plan to deliver immediate benets and gain ac-ceptance for the tool, if you are to get more from it in the future.

Nevertheless, this case study shows that the, not insignicant, barriersto adoption of BPMN modelling by a Computer Science department canbe overcome. A low barrier to entry with a tool that can be used im-mediately to deliver something practically useful is key to successfulimplementation.




The vendor

Vendor background

MID Gmbh is a Nuremberg software and con-sultancy agency with many years of experiencewith methodology and project management in-corporated in its MID modelling methodology,M3. It is ISO 9001 certied. The MID manage-ment team can be reviewed at http://www.mid.de/en/company/management.html.

It is now delivering a next-generation role-oriented and business-focussed developmentplatform supporting a range of standards-

based (BPMN and UML) modelling tools.These tools have a Microsoft Ofce look andfeel, as business users expect these days, andthe different tools are appropriate to differentroles (such as data and business analysis), allsharing the same repository. The overall goalof this toolset is to help organisations to bridgethe gap between business process descriptionand optimisation and conventional technology-oriented systems development.

In addition, the MID Academy offers an ex-tensive training program, as well as in-housequalication courses tailored to a particular

companys needs. MIDs User Group has beenrecently reorganised as an independent andself-sufcient user community, supportedby, but not controlled by MIDa developmentwhich we at Bloor heartily welcome.

MID is privately owned by a Swiss equity investorwith an engineering background, who takes anactive interest in both MID and in software de-velopment generally. The company isnt beingobviously micro-managed by the money peopleand the MD responsible for Product Develop-ment and Management, Jochen Seemann, has

been given a mandate for the long term devel-opment of high-quality solutions. This means,for example, that MID consultancy is not beingtreated as a prot centre (although it no doubtpays for itself) but as a way to ensure customersatisfaction and to develop long-term relation-ships with large companies.

MID GmbH currently has about 110 employ-ees, and has its headquarters in Germany. Ithas branch ofces in Cologne, Stuttgart andMunich.

MID Gmbh web site: www.mid.de

A free subscription to MIDs Modelling Maga-zine can be downloaded at http://www.mid.de/en/company/modeling-magazine.html.

Worldwide distributorAptero Solutions (www.apterosolutions.com) isMIDs worldwide distributor and partner. Intel-lectually, Aptero Solutions is an informal childof that well-respected producer of software-automated business solutions, Select. Many ofits key personnel are ex-Select employees

As its name suggests, Aptero Solutions placesgreat emphasis on working at the business lev-el to solve business issues: We are committedto deliver software solutions to your businessrequirements. We pin down your pain point,

take on your challenges and get your systemsdoing what you want them to dotaken fromits website. At a business/technology level itsupports:

Model-driven application delivery.

Component software engineering.

Cloud application management.

Process performance management.

Business-driven software engineering.

As well as its relationship with MID (forbusiness-driven software engineering), Apterohas relationships with tool vendor Mendix (formodel-driven application delivery); there aresignicant possible synergies between theseapproaches. More than just focussing on tools,however, it specialises in facilitating and man-aging change, in co-operation with its clients.

Aptero has ofces in Cheltenham, in the UK,and has about 20 employees and associates.

Customers

MID GmbH targets blue-chip enterprisecustomers with large, long-running projectsacross a range of industry sectors. These cus-tomers choose MID because it is small enoughto be a manageable partner whilst still beingable to demonstrate technical competence andthe successful delivery of large projects.

Public sector customers:

Bundesagentur fr Arbeit Ministerium fr Lndlichen Raum und

Verbraucherschutz, Baden-Wrttemberg

Bundesministerium des Inneren Bundesministerium fr Migration und

Flchtlinge.
http://www.mid.de/en/company/modeling-magazine.htmlhttp://www.mid.de/en/company/modeling-magazine.htmlhttp://www.mid.de/en/company/modeling-magazine.htmlhttp://www.mid.de/en/company/modeling-magazine.html




The vendor

Industrial sector customers: Daimler AG Siemens AG.

Insurance customers:

HUK Coburg HanseMerkur Versicherung Barmer GEK AXA Winterthur.

Financial sector customers:

DATEV eG Deutsche Wertpapier Service Bank AG

Embedded systems customers:

Leopold Kostal GmbH & Co. KG Hella KGaA & Co.

Telecommunication sector customers:

Deutsche Telekom AG.

System integrators:

T-Systems Siemens IT Solutions and Services.

Commercial sector customers:

Witt Weiden (Otto Group)

Migros.

Competitors

MIDs competitors for Innovator for BusinessAnalysts are the large vendors of completedevelopment solutions including BPMN mod-elling (such as IBM and Oracle) and smallervendors of specialist BPMN tools.

In our opinion, it should be easier to get startedwith Innovator than with many large-vendortools (partly because of the breadth of user

requirements and extreme scalability someof the customers of large vendor solutionsrequire; and partly because of their legacysupport issues). Against smaller specialistvendors, MIDs defence is probably that it sup-ports a business-level role, the business ana-lyst, rather than just the BPMN modeller; andthat it has integrations with tools supportingother roles in the organisation.

Partners

MIDs partners are listed at http://www.mid.de/en/company/reference-list/partner.html .

Of particular interest are:

SAPMID is now an accredited SAP partner (and hasinvested a lot of resources in getting there),as part of developing its SAP Solution Man-ager plug-in to Innovator for Business Analystsand its MID Modelling Methodology for SAP(MSAP), which provides a domain speciclanguage (DSL) specially designed for the SAPworld. You can model alternative SAP selectionand implementation scenarios at the technicallevel using this DSL, generate portfolio andpotential analyses from these scenario modelsand then use them to carry out business evalu-

ations and comparisons. Appropriate SAP bestpractice solutions and existing processes canthen be reused in the SAP Solution Manager.What this means is that you can abstract yourbusiness requirements in BPMN and com-pare them with standard SAP processes at asimilarly abstracted level and then implementthe SAP solution that best ts your needs. TheMSAP prole provides a special DSL based onthe SAP NetWeaver terminology. The Innovatorsystem modeller can create SAP-specicarchitecture and design models and automati-cally generate SAP ABAP program source fromthese. MSAP is completely geared towards the

SAP ASAP implementation methodology andcan be used as a part of it, allowing MID Inno-vator to provide efcient, transparent decisionand implementation support for the life-cyclemanagement of SAP solutions.

Oracle

MID is an Oracle partner. For example, MIDintegrates with Oracles execution engine viaBPEL and can generate Oracle ADF GUI code.It also integrates with the JDeveloper rulesengine (although Oracles best rules engine,originally the Haley Ruleburst engine from

Australia, which has patents around linearscalability in limited areas, is now in Siebel andnot really accessible to MID).

Academia

Both MID and MIDs partner, Aptero Solutions,maintain strong relationships with universitiesand colleges throughout Europe and NorthAmerica. Academic site licenses for educa-tional use are available for all its commercialtools and Aptero, in particular, offers to shareits experience of commercially available toolswith legitimate students. This means that thepersonal edition of MIDs BPMN modelling

tool, Business Innovator, is getting tractionand visibility outside of its customer base.
http://www.mid.de/en/company/reference-list/partner.htmlhttp://www.mid.de/en/company/reference-list/partner.htmlhttp://www.mid.de/en/company/reference-list/partner.htmlhttp://www.mid.de/en/company/reference-list/partner.html




The vendor

Standards bodiesMID is an active member of the Object Man-agement Group (OMG - http://www.omg.org)and Arbeitskreis Software-Qualitt & Fortbil-dung e.V. (ASQF e.V. - https://www.isqi.org/en/asqf-ev.html). The former is an internationalstandards body and the latter is a networkof excellence for the software developmentindustry in German-speaking European coun-tries. MID works with ASQF e.V. on, for exam-ple, certication standards such as CertiedRequirements Engineer.

Financial inormation

MID is 100% privately owned, with a singleSwiss equity investor and its current revenueis around 1819 million Euros. Its currentprot margins are healthy with a considerableinvestment in its new software products.

Current issues

As a 100% privately owned company with asingle equity investor, MID is subject to therisk associated with the possible impact of onepersons decisions. On the other hand, it is free

of the pressures a public company faces fromthe market and its shareholders to respond totechnology fashions and to take short-term,share price focussed, decisions. On balance,we think private ownership is a good thing, asit makes it easier to take the long-term viewand target customer (as opposed to share-holder) satisfaction.

MID is also targeting the sort of large customerwhere it faces strong competition from compa-nies like IBMwhere the business practices itfaces may be as big a competitive problem asany competing technology issues. However, itdoes seem to have a strong position in its Ger-man home market to build from.

MID also faces the issue that many develop-ers are (erroneously, we think) seeing agile,bottom-up development as replacing model-driven approaches and top-down development.This is not the place for a discussion of this

issue, but MID has side-stepped it neatly bytargeting the business and business analysts.This is an area where interest in modelling isincreasing and, as Seemann points out, thebusiness is always most comfortable think-ing top down (in practice, of course, businessautomation needs both top down and bottomup thinking).
http://www.omg.org/https://www.isqi.org/en/asqf-ev.htmlhttps://www.isqi.org/en/asqf-ev.htmlhttps://www.isqi.org/en/asqf-ev.htmlhttps://www.isqi.org/en/asqf-ev.htmlhttp://www.omg.org/




Summary

With Innovator for Business Analysts, MID offers a modern, forwards-looking tool for the business analyst roleoriented towards businessstakeholders (rather than mainly targeting IT).

It helps the business analysts in a business to manage complexity and op-timise its business processes; helps to improve communication betweenall stakeholders in the business process; and can be used (but doesntnecessarily need to be used) as a basis for automating business processes.

Reasons to consider buying this product include its focus on standards-based (BPMN) business process modelling from the business point-of-view (instead of from an IT point of view); its possible integration with theMicrosoft Ofce environment and the SAP environment; and its support

for integration with tools supporting other roles in the business processstory, with all stakeholders sharing a common model through role-specic interfaces. All this adds up to a modelling tool that can promotedesired business outcomes and help to bridge the gap between IT andthe business.

Further Inormation

Further information about this subject is available fromhttp://www.BloorResearch.com/update/2110
http://www.bloorresearch.com/update/2110http://www.bloorresearch.com/update/2110


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Bloor Research overview

Bloor Research is one of Europes leading ITresearch, analysis and consultancy organisa-tions. We explain how to bring greater Agil-ity to corporate IT systems through the effec-tive governance, management and leverageof Information. We have built a reputation fortelling the right story with independent, in-telligent, well-articulated communicationscontent and publications on all aspects of theICT industry. We believe the objective of tellingthe right story is to:

Describe the technology in context to its

business value and the other systems andprocesses it interacts with.

Understand how new and innovative tech-nologies t in with existing ICT invest-ments.

Look at the whole market and explain allthe solutions available and how they can bemore effectively evaluated.

Filter noise and make it easier to nd theadditional information or news that sup-ports both investment and implementation.

Ensure all our content is available throughthe most appropriate channel.

Founded in 1989, we have spent over two dec-ades distributing research and analysis to ITuser and vendor organisations throughoutthe world via online subscriptions, tailoredresearch services, events and consultancyprojects. We are committed to turning ourknowledge into business value for you.

About the author

David NorfolkPractice LeaderFocus Area: Development/Governance

David Norfolk rst became interested in com-puters and programming quality in the 1970s,working in the Research School of Chemistry atthe Australian National University. Here he dis-covered that computers could deliver misleadinganswers, even when programmed by very cleverpeople, and was taught to program in FORTRAN. His ongoing interest inall things related to development has culminated in his joining Bloor in2007 and taking on the development brief.

Development here refers especially to automated systems development.This covers technology including acronym-driven tools such as: Appli-cation Lifecycle Management (ALM), Integrated Development Environ-ments (IDE), Model Driven Architecture (MDA), automated data analy-sis tools and metadata repositories, requirements modelling tools andso on. It also covers the processes behind them and the people issuesassociated with implementing them. Of particular interest is organisa-tional maturity as a prerequisite for implementing effective (measured)process and ITIL (v3) as a framework for automated service delivery.

David is a past co-editor (and co-owner) of Application Development Ad-visor and associate editor for the launch of Register Developer, and iscurrently executive editor for GEEs IT Policies and Procedures prod-

uct. He has an honours degree in Chemistry and is a Chartered IT Pro-fessional, has a somewhat rusty NetWare 5 CNE certication and is afull Member of the British Computer Society (where he is on the com-mittee of the Conguration Management Specialist Group).

His early career involved working in database administration (DBA) andoperations research for the Australian Public Service in Canberra. Davidthen returned to his UK birthplace (1982) where he worked for Bank ofAmerica and Swiss Bank Corporation, at various times holding positionsin DBA, systems development method and standards, internal control,network management, technology risk and even PC support. He was in-strumental in introducing a formal systems development process for theBank of America Global Banking product in Croydon.

In 1992 he started a new career as a professional writer and analyst.Since then he has written for many major computer magazines and vari-ous specialist titles around the world. He helped plan, document andphotograph the CMMI Made Practical conference at the IoD, London in2005 and has written many industry white papers and research reportsincluding: IT Governance (for Thorogood), Online Banking (for FT Busi-ness Reports), Developing a Network Computing Strategy and Corpo-rate Desktop Services (for Business Intelligence), the Business Implica-tions of Adopting Object Technology (for Elan Publishing).

He has his own company, David Rhys Enterprises Ltd, which he runsfrom his home in Chippenham, where his spare moments (if any) arespent on photography, sailing and listening to music.


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Copyright & disclaimer

This document is copyright 2011 Bloor Research. No part of this pub-lication may be reproduced by any method whatsoever without the priorconsent of Bloor Research.

Due to the nature of this material, numerous hardware and softwareproducts have been mentioned by name. In the majority, if not all, of thecases, these product names are claimed as trademarks by the compa-nies that manufacture the products. It is not Bloor Researchs intent toclaim these names or trademarks as our own. Likewise, company logos,graphics or screen shots have been reproduced with the consent of theowner and are subject to that owners copyright.

Whilst every care has been taken in the preparation of this document

to ensure that the information is correct, the publishers cannot acceptresponsibility for any errors or omissions.


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