Model

Definitions

Model

a work product representating an abstraction (simplification) of something that captures its essential characteristics (for some specific purpose) while ignoring unimportant or diversionary details

Model Set

the cohesive set of all models

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Model is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Abstract
• Superclass: Work Product
• Subclasses:
  • Data Model,
    which models a business enterprise, application, or component in terms of its data.
  • Function Model,
    which models a business enterprise, application, or component in terms of functional decomposition.
  • Object Model,
    which models a business enterprise, application, or component in terms of its objects.
  • Process Model,
    which models the business enterprise, application, or component in terms of its processes.
  • Quality Model,
    which models the quality factors used in requirements engineering, architecting, and testing.
  • State Model,
    which models a class of objects in terms of their states.
  • Use Case Model,
    which models operational requirements in terms of externals, use cases, and the relationships between them.

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of a model are to:

• Enable the modeler to:
  • Analyze the thing being modeled.
  • Simplify the thing being analyzed.
  • Include essential characteristics.
  • Exclude unimportant diversionary details.

Guidelines

• Different endeavors require different processes, which in turn will require different modeling work products.
• Every endeavor does not require the production of every modeling work product.
• Select only those modeling work products that are appropriate for the endeavor.
• Selected modeling work products should be:
  • Relevant.
  • Useful.
  • Usable.
  • Cost-effective.