A
activity

  In the UMA , an activity is a breakdown element which supports the nesting and logical grouping of related process elements such as descriptor and sub-activities, thus forming breakdown structures.

activity detail diagram
  Diagram depicting all the breakdown elements within the scope of the selected process element. This diagram also depicts input/output relationships between tasks, activities, and work products; as well as responsibility relationships between roles and tasks. Activity detail diagrams are used to provide a complete summary of an activity and thus improve their comprehensibility.
agile
  A set of values and principles for software development that use lean production techniques to deliver value to stakeholders quickly and frequently. See the agile manifesto at: http://agilemanifesto.org/
architectural mechanism
  Architectural mechanisms represent common concrete solutions to frequently encountered problems. They may be patterns of structure, patterns of behavior, or both.
architectural view
  A view of the architecture from a given perspective.
architecture

  Describes the blueprint for software development, frequently represented using a number of architectural views. It also contains the rationale, assumptions, explanations and implications of the decisions that were made in forming the architecture as well as the global mapping between views.

artifact
  Artifacts are a specialized type of work product that represents tangible, non-trivial items that are consumed, produced, or modified by tasks. Artifacts may be composed of other artifacts and often serve as a basis for defining reusable assets.
assists
  Describes roles that may be consulted on task but are not actually assigned to perform the work.
B
breakdown element
  Any element modeled in UMA that is part of process structure.
breakdown structure

  A UMA construct that specifies a process as the hierarchical composition of breakdown elements.

build
  An operational version of a system or part of a system that demonstrates a subset of the capabilities to be provided in the final product
Business Event

  Trigger for the execution of a business process. The processing of a business event can be done manually or using software products and applications. Some decisions need to be done on the event for example to accept/ reject it or to initiate some business processes. Those decisions can be implemented using a rule engine technology.

  The following list gives some examples of business event:

  - Claim is received
  - Tax form is filled
  - Loan application is received
  - Car is out of the chain
  - Train wheel goes in front of infrared sensor
  - RFID read
  - Wafer is started within the Fab
Business Object Model

  R e presentation of the core concepts of a business and their logical connections. The business object model is the basis for the vocabulary used in business rules. The elements of a business object model map to those of a corresponding execution domain object model.

Business policy

  Business policy controls, influences, or regulates the actions of an enterprise and the persons working in it but without any enforcement. The purpose is more to guide an enterprise

  Business policy tends to be:

  - less structured
  - less discrete or not atomic
  - less carefully expressed in terms of a standard vocabulary
  - not directly enforceable.

  Business policy is the base for business rules.

  An example of policy is:" A claim needs to be processed in 60 days"

Business rule

  Formal declarative statement that describes the way business people want their business to operate. Express in natural language it models part of a business policy, it is specified unambiguously, and it can be implemented in a computer system. A business rule is written in a business rule language, in the form of a statement made of conditions and actions that execute only if the objects treated match the conditions. Business rules are packaged into a ruleset before they can be executed by a rule engine.

  There are historically multiple definitions of a business rules. For reference purpose we can list:

  - OMG - 1992 - Analysis and Design Reference Model : "Business rules are declarations of policies or conditions that must be satisfied". This definition is too restrictive as business rules includes guidelines.
  - Guide - 1995 - Business Rules Project - "Business rule is a statement that defines or constraints some aspect of the business.
  - Business Modeling with UML 2000 - "A statement that can control or affect both the execution of a business process as well as the structure of the resources in the business"
  - Business Rule Group in 2008 provides two definitions according to the business or IT point of view.

  Below are some examples of business rules:

  - The claim must be issued before the expiration date of the policy.

  - The claim date of loss should be before the expiration date of the policy and after the effective date.

  - If the customer is eligible for a loan then continue the loan application processing

  - If the Bank Account Number is not valid refuse the operation
  - If Tax Return Secondary Taxpayer is not assigned SSN, then EITC Eligible Tax Return is False
Business Rule Management System

  System designed to modify and manage business logic independently from the enterprise application. BRMS provides a way to automate decision making and execute precisely on business policy. Consequently, policies and decisions form the core of all business processes and activities. A BRMS product should include facilities to enable:

  - Full life-cycle maintenance of business rules by business analysts and developers
  - Assured consistency by representing business knowledge uniformly with centralized control
  - Facilities for testing, scenario generation, and impact analysis

  BRMS is a method and means to treat rules as a true corporate asset.

C
capability pattern

  A special type of process used to define a stereotypical way of performing work related to a particular subject. Capability Patterns are often used as course grained building blocks to assemble delivery processes.

checklist
  A specialized type of guidance that identifies a series of items that need to be completed or verified. Checklists are often used in reviews such as walkthroughs or inspections.
code instrumentation
  "Extra" statements added to source code for the purposes of testing, debugging, tuning, or tracing.
component

  An encapsulated part of the system that is nontrivial, nearly independent, and replaceable and that fulfills a clear function in the context of well-defined architecture. A component conforms to and provides the realization of a set of interfaces.

composite role
  A special role descriptor that relates to more than one role. It represents a grouping of roles with the main purpose of reducing the number of roles defined in method content for a process.
concept
  A specialized type of guidance that outlines key ideas or basic principles that serve as foundation for additional information.
custom category
  Used to categorize content based on the user's criteria. One important use is for constructing views for publishing.
D
Decision point

  Groups together all potential rules that determine one decision. It can be found in a use case description or in a Business Process Map task description. During the inception phase, the project team can build a decision point table to log the potential decision points which need to be managed during the Rule Harvesting phase.

  Example:

  - Group all rules that determine 'eligibility for membership'
  - Verify the claim data
  - Adjudicate the claim

  Any task or activity description which includes mental thinking. Decision points are indicated by verbs such as check, qualify, compute, calculate, estimate, evaluate, determine, assess, compare, verify, validate, confirm, decide, diagnose, process, and so on. Those verbs help the team to extract a lot of business knowledge, including how the decisions are done.

Decision service

  A software component that encapsulates run-time rule processing elements. The component instances provide a "ready to run" business rule application. A decision service offers a business interface with methods. The implementation of the interface is calling a business rule engine.

  A decision service component is mostly stateless and simplifies the process of integrating business rules with popular application platforms such as JSE, JEE, and a Web service. In the context of a BRMS application it is also named rule service.

Decision table

  Spreadsheet like, or table view for a set of business rules, where a rule is represented by one row in the table. The rows and columns identify all situations that require a business decision, and specify which action to take in each of these situations.

  Columns are conditions and actions of the rule. Color background help to identify which are conditions.

  Here is an example of a Decision Table.

Decision tree

  Tree view for a set of business rules, where a rule is represented by a path through the tree. Decision trees are composed of branches that have a condition node as their root, and end with actions. Decision trees allow you to manage a large set of rules with some conditions in common but not all.

  Here is an example of a Decision Tree.

deliverable

  A specialized type of work product used to define the primary outputs that represent value, material or otherwise, to the client, customer or other stakeholders. These are typically the result of packaging other work products for sign-off and delivery.

delivery process
  A delivery process is a special process describing a complete and integrated approach for performing a specific project type. It provides a complete end-to-end lifecycle (for it's scope) and can be used as a reference for running projects with similar characteristics.
descriptor
  Defines how method content is represented in a process. Descriptors are the key concept for realizing the separation of process from method content. A descriptor has its own relationships and properties which can be modified independent of the default relationships defined in the method content.
discipline

  Primary categorization mechanism for organizing tasks that define a major 'area of concern' and/or cooperation of work effort.

discipline grouping
  A collection of related disciplines defined for a specific usage or context.
domain

  Primary categorization mechanism for organizing work products that have an affinity to each other based on resources, timing, relationships or general subject area.

E
effort

  The number of labor units required to complete an activity or other project element. Usually expressed as staff hours, staff days, or staff weeks. Should not be confused with duration.

estimation considerations
  A specialized type of guidance that describes the amount of effort to produce a work product or perform a task including any influencing factors.
example

  A specialized type of guidance used to include typical samples of the items to be produced, may often only be a partial sample that is intended as further guidance rather than something to be reused.

F
Fact

  Facts are combinations of terms that describe what business people know about their business. It connects terms into sensible business relevant observations. Facts may describe the relationships between terms, like an Insurance Policy is a form of Contract, or it may describe the interactions between terms (collaboration).

  Here are some examples of facts

  - A coverage is the amount of protection against loss.
  - A Deductible is the amount the Insured must pay when a loss occurs.
  - A user must be part of a group, and the group includes the set of permissions the user can use.
  - A taxpayer files a tax return form.
  - A insured enters a claim in the system.
  - A customer could have only one purchase order at a time
FURPS+
  Functional, usability, reliability, performance, supportability and others. This acronym represents categories that can be used in the definition of product requirements.
G
guidance

  General term referring to all types of material that provide additional detail on other types of elements.

guideline
  A specialized type of guidance that provides additional detail on how to handle a particular method element. Guidelines most commonly describe how to perform some set of actions related to tasks or provide additional rules or recommendations related to the representation of work products.
I
input
  In the UMA, input defines the work products needed to perform a task. These inputs are further categorized as being optional, mandatory or external. Optional inputs may be excluded from the task in some cases without consequences, while without mandatory inputs it is typically not possible to complete the task. External inputs are used to defined mandatory inputs that are the result of work outside the scope of the defined process.
iteration

  A grouping of repeatable activities based on a set period of time that produces an expected set of results that has value. These results may be further refined in successive iterations.

M
method architecture
  A method architecture defines the concepts, their properties, and relationships for defining methods and processes. It is typically compromised of a meta-model, modeling language, or schema (synonyms) that is used for organizing large amounts of descriptions for management development methods and processes, such as software engineering, mechanical engineering, business transformation, sales cycles etc.
method configuration
  A method configuration specifies the selection of a logical subset of a method library, defined in terms of selected packages within plug-ins and any necessary views.
method content

  Defines the primary reusable building blocks or reference materials of the method framework that exist outside of any predefined lifecycle. The basic content elements are: roles, tasks, work products and guidance.

method element
  There are two kinds of method element: method content and process.
method library
  A physical container for method plug-ins and method configuration definitions. All method elements are stored in a method library.
method plug-in
  Represents a physical container for method elements.
milestone

  A significant event in the project or sub-project, such as a major decision, completion of a deliverable, or meeting of a major dependency (like completion of a phase).

O
outcome

  Specialized type of work products used to describe intangible items such as the completion of some set of activities, a result or state. A key differentiator for outcomes against artifacts is that outcomes are not candidates for harvesting as reusable assets. Outcomes can not have associated templates or examples and are not possible to reuse as assets on other projects.

output
  Defines the results of performing some task in terms of the work products produced or modified.
P
pattern
  Generalized solution that can be implemented and applied in a problem situation (a context)
performer
  Describes the roles that will be executing a task. There are two types of performs roles, a single primary performer responsible for the completion of the tasks and additional performers. There may be any number of additional performers and both are considered as allocated resources for the purposed of project scheduling.
phase

  A specialized type of activity that represents a significant period in a project normally ending with a decision checkpoint, major milestones, or a set of deliverables. Phases typically have well defined objectives and provide the basis for how the project work will be structured.

practice
  A specialized type of guidance that describes a proven way of doing something or common approaches and strategies that represent best practices. This is also used to represent standards and policies related to methods.
process

  Describes the assembly of method content in a sequence or workflow that defines how the work will be executed. There are two types of processes: capability patterns and delivery processes.

R
report
  A specialized type of guidance used to provide guidance on representing the output of an automated tool that may be a combination of information from one or more other work products. .
Requirements
  1. A capability needed by the user to solve a problem [in order to] to achieve an objective
  2. A capability that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed documentation [THA00]
reusable asset
  A specialized type of guidance linking to intellectual capital that can be utilized to perform some task or leveraged as a starting point for the creation of a solution. This type of guidance is usually represented a link to some external source. This may include assets such as source code, templates, patterns, architectural frameworks, domain models, and so on - that can be reused in a different contexts.
risk

  A potential event or future situation that can potentially affect, prevent, or limit a project's success. Project risks may be seen as threats or opportunities.

roadmap
  A specialized type of guidance that is specific to a process that represents a linear walkthrough of those items from a particular perspective.
role

  Describes a standard set of responsibilities and corresponding skills necessary to perform a task or create a work product. A Role is not a job description the same person may execute several roles simultaneously or during the course of a project and a role may likewise be defined to represent a group such as a review board.

role set
  A specialized type of category used to organize roles by certain commonalities such as type of work, profession or area of knowledge.
role set grouping
  A specialized category used to organize role sets.
Rule engine

  Software component used to execute business rule. The rule engine uses two major entities:

  - a Rule Set: The set of rules that are processed by the rule engine, and rule execution flow information.
  - an object set: The set of objects to be treated by rules.

  A rule engine is executing a cycle consisting of three action states: match rules, select rules, and execute rules until there is no more rule to execute.

  The rule engine evaluates the conditions of rules in the ruleset against the objects to determine (match) which rules are eligible to be executed. During execution, the engine collects all eligible rules in an “agenda”.

  The object set is referenced in the engine's working memory, which also contains the current state of the objects which lead to the current rules in the agenda.

  All objects are examined by all rules. The effects of the execution are to create new data, or to modify existing ones.
  The agenda is a logical workspace where rule instances that have conditions matching objects in the working memory are put. There can be several rule instances for the same rule. When all the candidate rule are matched the engine turns to the agenda for rule execution.

  One execution mode is the RetePlus algorithm used to match many patterns with many objects, it helps to minimize the number of rules and conditions that need to be evaluated, computes which rules should be executed, and identifies in which order these rules should be fired.

  Rules engine is designed to be complete, and ensures that the effects of one rule execution (or firing) is propagated so that everything that can be inferred is done in one run.

  The power of rule engines comes from the fact that complex behaviors result from simple rules, this is known as rule chaining. This is a major change in the programming model developer used to have.There is no more static control structure of the program where function is calling one another, rules are "communicating" with other rule only by way of the data. This is a data change that trigger potential rule execution. Rules are not executed sequentially and it is not always possible to determine through inspection of a set of rules which rule will be executed first or cause the inference engine to terminate.
Rule Governance

  Governance is about operating the business well, and includes being able to demonstrate that you do what you say you do, and being able to explain why you do what you do the way that you are doing it.

  Rule Governance is covering the processes to manage rule using a BRMS.

rule life cycle

  Various states the rule will have during its life cycle, from creation, testing, in production to retirement. A rule life cycle is linked to the development practices of the IT team and also to some business requirements. Rule life cycle is an important element to develop the rule governance processes.

rule project

  Type of project in which you can manage and organize rule artifacts, class path, parameters and domain object models. A rule project needs to reference a java project, jar file, xml schema or web service as execution object model. A rule project represents one rule set but can have multiple rule flows.

Rule Property

  A rule property is an attribute attached to a rule and help to add meta-data on top of the rule. In BRMS rule properties are used to manage the life cycle of the rule, attach documentation such as business motivation, business context,... and can be used during the extraction of the rule to build a rule set or to dynamically select the rule in front of a business event.

Rule repository

  Central place where business rules and information about their execution are kept and maintained in an organized way. A repository contains one or more projects. You can save a repository in a file system or in a database.

Rule Set

  A Rule Set is a group of rules that is executed as an aggregate entity. This term also refers to the object that is created when a ruleset file is parsed to instantiate an engine. Rule artifacts include all of the elements from a rule project that you can put into a Rule Set like decision tables, decision tree, rules.

ruleflow

  Oriented graph composed of rule tasks nodes and decision nodes, which is used to control and order the execution of rule artifacts. It can be created graphically using the Ruleflow Editor.

  A ruleflow can be seen as a business process, but it is not a complete one. When designing a business process type of application is quite often that some sub flow of the business process model will be mapped to a ruleflow. But a rule flow is for the execution logic of the rule set not of a process.

S
scope

  The boundaries for inclusions and exclusions that define the depth and breadth of the project. Example of areas for consideration are included functionality, affected organizations, lifecycle phases performed, included and excluded deliverables, involved geographic areas, and so on.

step
  Sub-section of a task used to organize the work to be performed to achieve the overall goal of the task. Not all Steps are necessarily performed each time a task is executed in a process.
supporting material
  A guidance that is a catch-all for other types of guidance not specifically defined elsewhere.
T
task

  Defines a unit of work that needs to be done in order to transform inputs into outputs through a series of steps performed by one or more roles independent of a particular work breakdown structure (WBS).

team profile
  A breakdown element that groups role descriptors or composite roles, thus defining a nested hierarchy of teams and team members.
template
  A specialized type of guidance that specifies the structure of a work product by providing a pre-defined table of contents, sections, packages, and/or headings, a standardized format, as well as descriptions on how the sections and packages are supposed to be used and completed. Often provided as a form or empty instanced of a work product that can be used as starting point for the creation of a new one.
term

  Term references a business concept used in daily business operations. It can be one or more words, nouns. They are often found in different departments and refer to the same business concept from a different perspective: they are synonyms. A term may describe business concept which will be mapped to a class and a characteristic of a business entity will be mapped to attribute of a class, and sometime a term may describe the way a business object behave, in that last case it will be mapped within method or state machine.

  Examples:

  - Taxpayer, taxpayer obligation, loan, claim, legal entity, etc.
term definition
  A specialized form of guidance that provides definitions that are used to build up the glossary
tool
  A standard category used as a container for tool mentors. It can also provide general descriptions of the tool and its general capabilities.
tool mentor
  A tool mentor is a type of guidance that explains how to apply a specific tool to accomplish a task, perform a set of steps or instantiate a particular work product.
U
UMA
  Stands for Unified Method Architecture. UMA is a state-of-the-art architecture for the conceiving, specifying, and storing of method and process metadata.
V
view
  Structured content collections designed to drive publication and facilitate browsing. They are specified using custom categories.
W
white paper

  A specialized type of guidance for externally published papers that can be read and understood in isolation of other content elements.

work breakdown structure (WBS)

  A hierarchical structured list of all the project activities, in which the work of the project is broken down into smaller work units to achieve an appropriate level of granularity that ensures that the full scope of work to be performed is understood.

work product

  Used to define and describe the items needed as input or created as output of one or more tasks that are the responsibility of a single role. See: artifact, deliverable, outcome.

work product kind
  A specialized type of category used to organized work products based on their intended usage or type.