Assertions are a new way of looking at how we describe the business we perform.
Concept – An Assertion is an atomic unit of business closely aligned with the information produced by business participants
As single fundamental building blocks of decision and information they can be configured to represent the business and its information flows
Concept — Assertions are made constantly and repeatedly in any business
Those that are repeated often, and carry important information, are pivotal in describing the business. Important Assertions are made by Authorities, people charged with making commitments for the organization.
Concept — AM is not an IT or Enterprise Architecture methodology. It is a Business Language.
You don’t need technically oriented help to create your AM. If you can adjust your thinking to focus on the information you are half way there. But your IT department will love you if you use AM to speak to them. It leaves the technical decisions to them and the business decisions to you.
Concept — Assertions have a veracity that depends on the Authority and their responsibility
Veracity of information is often overlooked and is pivotal to accuracy and responsibility.
Concept — Information flows from an Assertion to other Authorities, who use the information to make Assertions of their own.
To make a business work requires complex movement of information throughout and outside an organization. Knowing the source and target, and the nature of the information drives decisions on accuracy, privacy, and technology.
Concept — An Assertion Model consists of the Assertions and the Connections(information flows) as a network that describes the business as a whole
A network more strongly represents how the organization is formed naturally. Linear walks through the network helps understand its parts. Hierarchies showing how information is gathered to support a final decision help understand rationale.
Concept — An Assertion Model can be subdivided to give a clear picture of the information flowing in and out of the sub-division
A division or view can support a perspective. Collecting all the Assertions made by a Departments can give clarity of information flows between them. Similarly collecting Assertions made outside the organization, supplying or using information. gives a clear understanding of stakeholders.
Concept — For implementation an Assertion might be automated
If the supporting information can be translated into the outputs by a calculation, or a set of business rules. then it can be implemented in software or a business rules engine. The information it produces still considered to be made from the Authority.
Concept — An Assertion can produce information that is highly structured (like an address) or less structured (like a descriptive paragraph)
A Frame defines the structure of the information supplied by an Assertion. There is a continuum between structured and unstructured information. The Frame also states the meaning of the values it contains.
Concept — An Assertion may be implemented with a combination of automatic and manual capabilities
The receipt of incoming information from separate sources and its compilation into a readable and available format to present to the Authority may be automated. The determination must still be performed by a person, but the arrangement of the output may be facilitated by software to produce a valuable product.
Concept — Prototyping is easy
The well defined Assertion lends itself to implementation in a prototype system. If a single Assertion can be built in software, receiving a populated Frame from another Assertion and passing the output forward. And if the Connection is provided by the software. Then the result is a working prototype in the form of an engine that presents incoming information to a test Authority allowing them to confirm the Assertion is properly defined.
Concept — Assertions carry veracity
Identical information from different authorities may be more or less reliable. It cannot be used interchangeably.
Concept — Assertion Modeling is oriented to milestone, status, and events
When information is delivered from an Assertion it is a business event. It may trigger other assertions to re-determine; perhaps to authorize a fund transfer or publish an article. Or it may deliver information on the status of a late, unfinished project.
Concept — Information flows can be verbal, visual, paper based, electronic
Assertion Models can describe any business. An auctioneer makes an assertion by stating an amount, asking for a bid. That assertion is transmitted verbally and it’s commonly recognized meaning is a request for another Assertion. A bidders raised hand is an assertion, transmitted visually with its own framed meaning, ‘I commit to buy at that amount’.
Concept — As a language, assertions have no implication of pertinence or accuracy. They rely on the veracity of the issuer
A lie is an Assertion. Just like the business world, only the veracity of the Authority can be used to decide on subsequent decisions. An Assertion may not be connected; it will fall on deaf ears.
Concept — The specification of an Assertion in an organization (how it does its business) is information in its own right. It can inform strategic and tactical decisions
An Assertion on organizational change (so necessary for innovation) requires the inspection of the current structure (analysis of the AM) and its output may be an instruction for current Assertions to be changed and re-implemented.
Concept — Assertion Models describe all levels of business
There is not a different kind of description for strategic models, or financial models. Different Authorities, same language. Pull out the strategic statements for a high level perspective. Pull out the operational statements for an operational perspective. Look at the connections between. They are the objectives and the progress reports.
Concept — Assertions define responsibilities of the Authorities
Each modeled Authority has a specification section that states how it is to be determined. It becomes the responsibility of the Authority to conform to that specification. The collection of the specifications for a given authority summarize the responsibilities of the that Authority.
These concepts make Assertion Modeling a powerful paradigm shift!