Integrating Process and Data Models in a Horizontal Organization - High-Performance Web Databases: Design, Development, and Deployment - page 269

essential processes. Each subprocess will be decomposed into smaller
processes — each with its set of objectives (that support the objectives of
its parent subprocess, as was mentioned earlier) — thereby creating a hi-
erarchical information system model.
Again, the process of generating an IS model is not a disguise replacing
one hierarchical structure with another. The process modeling concept is
the identification of related activities or processes as a means of under-
standing the various multidisciplinary activities needed for incorporation
into an essential process or support department. It shows how the activi-
ties within the organization interact, and not necessarily the lines of au-
thority and responsibility often identified in the traditional hierarchical
structure. Exhibit 2 shows the hierarchical nature of the process modeling
method.
To facilitate the generation of an organization process model, a steering
committee should be established at the highest level of the organization, to
set such standards and guidelines as naming conventions for data ele-
ments and process identification. Each support department and essential
process is responsible for developing its portion of the process model.
Some overhead training will be needed to provide personnel involved in
the development of the process model with basic information about pro-
cess modeling. Experience has shown that a basic discussion (e.g., type of
symbols, use of input data flows, processing, and output data flows) is nec-
essary only to get nontechnical information personnel involved in the de-
velopment process.
With the advance of group decision support systems (GDSS), a systems
analyst can facilitate the decision-making processes used to generate the
key objectives and the subprocesses. As each support department and es-
sential process builds its respective model, the steering committee will
provide guidance and coordination between all of these components.
When each portion of the model (i.e., support departments and the essen-
tial processes) is completed, the steering committee will be responsible for
bringing each portion together into an overall organization model.
Once the overall process model is created, the data administrator will be
responsible for normalizing the data structures and subsequently for gen-
erating the data model. The series of steps used to generate the actual data
model is beyond the scope of this chapter. But the general concepts of ob-
ject-oriented analysis and design, along with the normalizing process, are
used to generate this data model. Once the data model is completed, the
process model must be modified to reflect the more logically created data
structures. Exhibit 4 illustrates generally how data models on the project
level change the process model. The same approach is used to develop
data models on the organizational level and subsequent changes to the or-
ganizational level process models.