Business analysts use business vocabulary to communicate domain knowledge that is organized using concept models.
A concept model begins with a dictionary, which is usually directed at the central nouns concepts of the domain.
Concept models place importance on excellence, creating reliant descriptions that are untainted by biases and an abundant terminology.
A concept model recognizes the right words to use in communications, such as when communicating business analysis information.
Concept models can be useful where:
- The organization needs to arrange, absorb, maintain and communicate the main knowledge.
- The change needs to document a large numbers of business rules.
- There is push back from the stakeholders about what the data models, class diagrams, or data element represent.
- Creative solutions are required when re-engineering business processes or other features of the business capability.
- The enterprise has regulatory or compliance requirements.
A concept model is different from a data model. The objective of a concept model is to assist with the communication of natural language statements, and their meaning but they are not designed to consolidate, summarize, and clarify data.
There are three elements of concepts models which are:
1. Noun Concepts: These are the simplest concepts in a concept model.
2. Verb Concepts: These are an association between noun concepts. These verb concepts have clear words to prevent misunderstandings and are used to create sentences.
3. Other Connections: Because concept models should aid with interpretation, other types of common associations are used other than verb concepts.
These include :
- classifications.
- Words which signify a part of an association e.g. some, less.
- positions.
The concept model has both strengths and limitations, which include:
Strengths
- It provides a formal means of communication with the stakeholders which would convey clear information and artful meanings.
- It is free of data design influences and the limited terminologies of data models.
- It is very useful for professional, capable, rule based business processes.
- It helps confirm that many business rules and complicated decision tables are transparent and cohesive.
Limitations
- It may lead to unrealistic expectations about the successful implementation of the solution.
- It requires the ability to think theoretically.
- The business terminology have to be constantly updated to ensure that they remain current.