Monday, June 8, 2009

What makes an ideal model

I am currently reading BPMN: Modeling and Reference Guide by Stephen A. White and Derek Miers (ISBN: 978-0-9777527-2-0), and it is a great introduction to BPMN.

As I was reading it, one thought stood out clearly. And that relates to an earlier post I made about flowcharts.

Chapter 4 puts my thoughts of a good model quite articulately (quoting Marshal Clemens from Ideagram). Namely they should be
  • Salient - only include detail that is relevant to the task at hand.
  • Accurate - it should reflect the correct state of affairs, not a biased or incorrect view.
  • Complete yet Parsimonious - it should be simple as possible, but no simpler
  • Understandable - it should not be too complicated for the reader to understand. Any assumed knowledge should be indicated.

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