Application Scenarios

Approach 1.0

2016-09-19T13:32:16Z

Methodology

Use Case Requirements

The approach used to develop and describe the use cases builds on the methodology of storytelling.Since this deliverable sets up the scene for business requirements for business and IT alignment, the requirements should be presented in a form that is easily understandable for all stakeholders. Basically a story consists of the following main elements: actors, starting situation, transformation and end situation. The starting and end situation, as the name already implies, describe under which circumstances the story begins and how it ends. It is important to note that in this document the initial situation is an anonymised real case, whereas the end situation is an envisioned scenario which may exist in the future. The transformation stands for events that occur in between.

The concept of storytelling has been applied and adapted for the purpose of CloudSocket (see Figure 2). A business episode (=story) gives a brief overview of the starting situation and first indications, which represent in this case the end situation, of how cloud services could support the enterprise. Then it is described how the enterprise deals with the situation now -means without cloud service support- using the concept of different scenes - transformation. In addition, each scene refers to potential business processes that might be supported with cloud offerings. The business episodes and scenarios are based on true stories as they occur in start-ups. However, the stories have been extended to emphasize typical situations relevant for CloudSocket. The real names of the companies and actors are anonymized.

Development of Business Process as a Service Repository

The goal of the second phase is to build a business process as a Service repository with an initial set of pre-defined business processes. These process collections represent variants of typical processes of an enterprise with different levels of cloud computing support. In order to manage the process repository a structure is required, which consists of different abstraction layers and serves as a guiding principle to classify the processes. Initially it has been examined from which perspective to derive this structure. Different influencing factors form the starting point of process identification from business perspective, such as competitive strategy, the services and products, customer segments, customer requirements and the business model.

Processes are examined from various perspectives following the guiding principle that "the quality of a model is higher the better it serves the purpose of use from the viewpoint of the user" (Becker et al., 2003). Hence the top level hierarchy should be developed with respect to the intended use and purpose of the process repository. In order to structure the process repository we examined several approaches and frameworks, in particular Porter's value chain, the APQC's process classification framework (PCF) and the Business Model Canvas from Osterwalder & Pigneur (2010). The process repository should be general enough to be used for any enterprise but also support a specific enterprise to identify and organize the appropriate processes. Based on a general analysis and in consultation with the use case partners we developed a four layer structure with APQC's PCF first three layers and process variants on the fourth layer. Additionally we use the Business Model Canvas as an entry portal, supporting a mapping from the business model elements to processes and process groups of the PCF. Details auf the structure and the rationale are described in section 4.1. Figure 3 summarizes the methodology used to develop the CloudSocket business process repository. The repository has been developed using the ADONIS® toolkit.

BWCON 2 Green Energy 1.0

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BWCON 1 Ecological Agriculture 1.0

2016-09-19T13:31:18Z

MATHEMA 3 Kiosk Distribution Process 1.0

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MATHEMA 1 Internet Research and Procurement Process 1.0

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MATHEMA 2 Digitial Rights Validation Process for ePrinting 1.0

2016-09-19T13:26:54Z

Concrete Process Alternatives Scene A 1.0

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Variant A: Human Workflow

The scene is complelty performed without technical infrastructure. The only means needed for collaboration between Francesa, Giorgio and Antonia is an internal file-share that is used to store the results of the daily actions as PDF and the summarizing Powerpoint slide deck.

CloudSocket Intervention: None, potentially basic file sharing services to be used.

Variant B: On-demand Research

Variant B builds upon the initial variant, where the research process is executed independent of actual demands for equipment (quantities and quality), this variant includes and integration with the inventory management and project execution environment. A notification in the form of a ticket triggers Francesca and Giorgio to start their lookup. Due to their experience, they know exactly where to search things and are efficient in doing so, nevertheless it is impossible for anyone else to follow up on their research expertise. Tracking of analysis results and their comparison is difficult.

Introducing a cloud-based ticketing system, team-lead Antonia starts to externalize on the research activities and resources on instance level, not replacing but documenting the human search task more efficiently. Additionally, the current base infrastructure of local file shares becomes more accessible in a daily basis, independent of the device used.

CloudSocket Intervention:

On-demand notification in case of demand from inventory system
Ticketing system (like JIRA or OSTicket) to track the progress of research runs, must grows with the organisation.
Support "out-sourcing" of research tasks to "idle" personnel
Access analysis results from anywhere

Variant C: Supported Search - Recommended Link Directory

Building upon variant B, the research process is enhanced by a directory of recommended links that are used frequently. Through tagging and annotation of the directory entries, Francesca and Giorgio quickly search for important and notworthy links to find good information on the internet.

CloudSocket Intervention:

A service is needed that enables the maintenance of a link list and semantically describe those links
The services of variant B are loosly combined with the link repository, supporting any kind of maintenance task and enable flexiblility.

Variant D: "Nightly-Search Analysis" Builds

Since the subprocess of "search and retrieve" task performed by both procurement experts is comparable, this part is out-sourced to an automation engine. The recommended links repository is used an input, filtered by the annotations for equipment and a nightly crawl/search for all possible combination is performed and stored accordingly. The input of a pre-analysis is supported by the system so that Francesca and Giorgio have a look at this initial report first thing in the morning to brief Antonia on current market trends. The match-making of analysis results to actual needs is done by all three team members.

CloudSocket Intervention:

Automation mechanisms to enable time-triggered and on-demand crawls
Reasoning based on inventory lists to identify all potential needs
Analysis dashboard for search results

MATHEMA 5 Ad-hoc Virtual Organisation Setup 1.0

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Virtual organizaton: ICT-Robotics district - communication between project members

Profile

The main aim of the ICT-Robotics district is to boost the regional economic development, to set up an effective chain of knowledge, and the creation of new economies of scale among the members. In the district each member exposes their skills, competences, assets, and services to open new opportunities to become supplier and/or partner in business activities.

Characteristics: [Company statistics e.g. number of employees, market size, domain, ....]

Business Model Canvas

[Graphical representation of the business model as input for the identification of processes, mapping via Business Model Canvas taxonomy] IMPORTANT: Identify business episodes as input for stories

Business Episode (Case 1)

[Describe starting situation, challenge, solution / Focus on triggers, interfaces, organisational context, relation to tools/systems, etc.]

Good communication between project members is one of the key success factors for virtual teamwork. Virtual organizations need solutions for project management, process development/optimization, file sharing, video conferencing and collaboration tools that help them to collaborate through a central hub for sharing information (to mention a few).

Scene A

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene B

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene n

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Business Episode (Case 2)

[Describe starting situation, challenge, solution / Focus on triggers, interfaces, organisational context, relation to tools/systems, etc.]

[...]

Scene A

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene B

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene n

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Business Episodes Definition Template 1.0

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Motivation: [Link to partner/pilot organisation, brief description]

Profile

Profile: [Short Company Profile]

Characteristics: [Company statistics e.g. number of employees, market size, domain, ....]

Business Model Canvas

[Graphical representation of the business model as input for the identification of processes, mapping via Business Model Canvas taxonomy]

IMPORTANT: Identify business episodes as input for scenes

Business episode (Case 1)
Business episode (Case 2)
Business episode (Case n)

Business Episode (Case 1)

[Describe starting situation, challenge, solution / Focus on triggers, interfaces, organisational context, relation to tools/systems, etc.]

Scene A

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene B

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene n

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Business Episode (Case 2)

[Describe starting situation, challenge, solution / Focus on triggers, interfaces, organisational context, relation to tools/systems, etc.]

Scene A

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene B

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Scene n

[Use persona approach, describe each scene as the happen in logical, temporal, ... logic]

Use Case Analysis and Evaluation Criteria Specification 1.2

2016-09-19T13:24:07Z

This wiki is used to perform the use case analysis and specification of evaluation criteria within the project. The wiki is used as a collaborative space to support interaction with all partners and stakeholders and provide means for traceability and "revision safety". The input for these pages has been initially discussed and elaborated together with the pilot partners BWCON and MATHEMA in two on-site meetings [1], [2]. In the wiki the terms "application scenario", "pilot scenario" and "business episodes" are used synonmously for "use case".

Approach used to develop the use cases

Use Cases

The following image provides an overview on the collected use cases and their relation to the pilot partner organisation. Further details are provided for each case in accordance with the description framework.

Business Incubator (BWCON):

BWCON's case relates to supporting founders and startups with technolgy supporting novel business models. Validation of the technology is performed by identifying representing cases from the founders in focus of BWCON.

Cluster Business Process Broker (MATHEMA):

The overarching "theme" of the cases relate to the SMEs in the regional context of tuscany, all related to the ICT/Robotics cluster setup. Further details on the cluster are available online at http://www.distrettoict-robotica.it/ (Italian). MATHEMA acts as a cloud-broker in the project to support the cluster members individually and also in combinations (teams, consortia) in getting ready for cloud services.

FrontPage 1.0

2016-09-19T13:23:48Z

Use Case Analysis and Evaluation Criteria Specification