Task: Goal-Service Modeling
Links service to business goals and identify services by analyzing the goals of an enterprise or a business unit.
Purpose

The purposes of this task are to:

  1. Ensure that each relevant business goal is supported by at least one candidate service or exposed service
  2. Validate the degree to which candidate services are business-aligned.
Relationships
RolesPrimary: Additional: Assisting:
InputsMandatory: Optional: External:
  • None
Outputs
Main Description

This task produces a goal-service model -- an allocation of candidate services (or existing services) to business goals. 

In this task, the work product slot of [Business Requirements] is fulfilled by Business Goals.

This technique begins with generalized statements of business goals, with subsequent decomposition into sub-goals that must be met in order to fulfill each higher level goal. This eventually leads to a level of decomposition that supports the identification of services associated with the sub-goals. During this process, KPIs are identified and collected along with the metrics that will be used to measure, monitor, and verify the degree of success in actually achieving the goals.  Finally, candidate services and services are allocated to the goals and sub-goals.

Task steps Identify business goals and sub-divide into sub-goals and Identify Key Performance Indicators and metrics for sub-goals are optional.  They do not need to be performed if a goal hierarchy with associated KPIs and metrics already exists when the task begins.

See Example: Identifying Candidate Services from Business Goals for two sample representations of a goal-service model.

Tool Mentor: Build a SoaML Service Model Using the SoaML Template is the entry point into a family of tool mentors that collectively describe how to build a SoaML-based service model using IBM® Rational® Software Architect.  This tool mentor provides an overview description of a process for using the tool to create the model.  It includes callouts to several other tool mentors that accelerate Service Identification efforts.

Steps
Identify business goals and sub-divide into sub-goals (optional)

As the Business Analyst, identify necessary business goals [Business Requirements] and decompose them into hierarchies of sub-goals that must be met in order to satisfy the top-level goals. Guideline: Defining Business Goals provides advice for defining goals and sub-goals. Use Checklist: Business Goals to further guide you, and use this as a completeness check.

Identify Key performance indicators and metrics for sub-goals (optional)

As the Business Analyst, identify Key Performance Indicators and Metrics for your goals. Document these as supplementary portions of your Business Goal descriptions.

KPI’s: KPIs are used to determine how well a business is meeting its goals, or to assess the level of performance of business processes. For example, for the goal increase revenue, a specific KPI could be increase revenue by 5% during the next fiscal year. This provides a specific way to determine if the goal has been met.

Metrics: Metrics identify the type of measurements that need to be collected to assess the state of the KPIs. For a KPI such as increase revenue by 5% during the next fiscal year, a metric could be record the revenue from all revenue generating transactions. Measurements would then need to be taken of each relevant transaction, across all systems that support those transactions. An implication of this is that all of the individual measurements dictated by the metric would need to be aggregated and reported in a meaningful way so that it can be determined if the related KPI has been met.

Associate services with business goals

Using the identified business goals, we now assign any candidate services in the project service portfolio to the goals they support. It is also possible to identify new candidate services where goals or sub-goals exist that have no supporting services. The method used to assign services to goals will depend on your choice of representation for the service model, and therefore the representation of the goal-service model.

During decomposition of goals into sub-goals and KPIs, the question will arise as to when we need to stop this decomposition process. As already mentioned, goal analysis can stop once sub-goals have been identified to the point at which services that can fulfill those sub-goals can be identified. If new services are identified, update the categorized service portfolio in the service model. For each sub-goal, identify the services needed to fulfill the sub-goal.

Update candidate service portfolio and service hierarchy
Add the new candidate services to the candidate service portfolio.   Position them within the candidate service hierarchy in accordance with your chosen taxonomic approach.
Properties
Multiple OccurrencesYes
Event Driven
Ongoing
Optional
Planned
Repeatable
Key Considerations

Failure to clearly define business goals will make it difficult to determine if proposed candidate services are business-aligned and appropriate for use in an SOA based initiative. Because Goal-Service Modeling can also identify (not simply validate) candidate services, failure to create this work product can lead to gaps in the service portfolio. These factors can result in additional effort and cost due to the creation of unnecessary services, or reduced success of the SOA based solution due to gaps in the service portfolio.

Because the Goal-Service Model is important to defining the scope of other service identification activities, failure to create it could result in unnecessary effort being spent in other activities, or gaps in the output from those activities.

Although the Goal-Service Model is considered important, if not essential, for a majority of SOA based initiatives, there could be occasional circumstances where the focus is narrowed to the creation of services for common technology functions which might not appear to be easily aligned with specific business goals. It is worth considering that, even in these scenarios, the Goal-Service Model can be used to document goals related to the Business of IT.

 

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