Multi-dimensional visualization in enterprise modeling

Abstract

Enterprise modeling (EM) is a discipline supporting business and IT alignment by providing means for capturing, visualizing and improving different perspectives of an enterprise, including processes,organization structures, products, systems, and business objectives. However, there is a lot of relevant information besides the one presented in enterprise models. Including such information into enterprise models or an integrated presentation of model and data view is supposed to ease decision making for stakeholders in organizations by providing contextual information for the decision at hand. Additional information however usually means additional complexity. This paper explores possibilities of an integrated presentation guided by the following questions: (1) What kind of complementary information should be visualized in an enterprise model? (2) How can the information be visualized? (3) How can the content of a specific visualization be adapted by the business stakeholder using it? Possibilities and benefits of enhancing the existing enterprise models with visualization of additional information are illustrated using a small case study. © 2012 Springer-Verlag.