RE: [bcm] [Fwd: BCM Template & XSD for Strategic Plans?]

["LUBASH, MIKE" <MIKE.LUBASH@DFAS.MIL>]

Hi,

Based on our meeting yesterday and the email Owen sent today, I offer
the following up to the group.

I believe we should be following the OMB Circular A-119 related to
consensus standards.  That brings up my reference to the work that was
done by the Business Rule Group (BRG) URL:www.businessrulegroup.org.
What is nice about their work is that you have a networked model of
concepts, business terms, and links/relationships related to motivation
(Zackman Architecture) that can be used at the concept level of the BCM.
If you take their work to the next level, you can use their
RFP#br/2003-06-03 titled "Business Semantics for Business Rules (BSBR).
The combination of these documents build off what the BCM is all about
from a business perspective.

These are the atomic part/pieces that can be used by business personnel
to construct their first cut schemas.  If I understood Owen correctly,
he is interested in moving strategic planning stuff out of PDF formats
into more re-usable XML containers.  The core terms, links, and math
models associated with the business rule work becomes the parts (atomic,
associations, and groupings) for assembly.  The BCM template, in my
opinion, is the mechanism (declarative) that is used "How does the
customer want to build & move the information" to assemble a strategic
plan.  That template is then turned into an XML schema that is used to
generate and enforce validation, if elected, for XML instance documents.
The concept terms from BRG are your building block (core components)
that are them constrained to a business process and result in
(ISO15000.5) constrained BIEs, ASBIE, etc. The template is the
blue-print for "how" the schema document is built, using the
infrastructure from BRG work. 

The XML schema that Owen references in his email is a presentation/
representation schema, in my opinion.  It does not go to the core of the
business requirement.  What needs to be added, is the agreement between
partners to use the schema and parts list, the process that governs it,
and any mediation, (may be required if different standard approach
selected).  Remember, we are not homogeneous, but heterogeneous.  Thus,
the importance of loose coupling, mediation and agreements between
partners that we continue to down-play when we are dealing with exchange
and standards. We still are looking to the technical mechanisms for this
answer, but we should be looking in the agreements and declarative
mappings.  
I would suggest that you look at their work, before we make a decision
to exclude the BRG stuff (reference: 
(http://www.businessrulesgroup.org/brgactv.htm). 

Just my two cents on Carl's email.

mike 


-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Mattocks [mailto:carlmattocks@checkmi.com] 
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2005 5:30 PM
To: bcm@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [bcm] [Fwd: BCM Template & XSD for Strategic Plans?]

BCM folks:

Please peruse the 'XSD for Strategic Plans' background information
below.

Please email any concerns you have about this activity so that we can
start to address them before our next meeting (Jan 24)

carl

---------------------------- Original Message
----------------------------
Subject: BCM Template & XSD for Strategic Plans?
From:    Owen_Ambur@ios.doi.gov
Date:    Mon, January 10, 2005 3:33 pm
To:      carlmattocks@checkmi.com
Cc:      glushko@SIMS.Berkeley.EDU
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--





Carl, as promised on the OASIS BCM TC telecon this afternoon, here are
some links relating to my proposal to specify an XSD for strategic
plans,
e.g., those U.S. federal agencies are required to compile and maintain
under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA):

1) http://www.xml.gov/draft/AIIMProjectProposalXSDforStrategicPlans.htm
--
My draft proposal to AIIM.

When Betsy Fanning of AIIM and I met with Dave McClure and his
colleagues
at the Council for Excellence in Government (CEG), she expressed the
view
that AIIM might be able to fast-track such a schema for establishment as
an ISO standard in as little as 18 months.  However, her board
apparently
was not as enthusiastic about such prospects.  At least one suggested
the
effort should be focused internally, within the U.S. federal government.
However, consistent with common sense as well as OMB Circular A-119, I
would prefer to specify a more generic and internationalized XSD.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars/a119/a119.html

2) http://xml.gov/draft/StrategicPlan.xsd -- The XSD Hypervision
compiled
for presentation to the xmlWG.  The agenda and minutes of that meeting
are
available, respectively, at http://www.xml.gov/agenda/20031015.htm &
http://xml.gov/minutes/20031015.htm

3) http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/mgmt-gpra/ -- The Office of Management
and Budget (OMB) site for GPRA.

Note: OMB is emphasizing the Performance Assessment Rating Tool (PART).
While I don't see BCM's notion of "choice points" as being particularly
relevant within the context of strategic plans (i.e., the documents
themselves), choices obviously must be made in determining priorities
(i.e., what goals and objectives to pursue) as well as in assessing
results that are not purely quantitative in nature (as may be the case
in
most instance of the application of PART).  When we met with the folks
at
CEG, one of them first thought that what I am proposing may be
unnecessary
in light of OMB's emphasis on PART.  However, the reality is that PART
cannot be efficiently applied *without* an XSD for strategic plans, and
before we concluded our meeting, I believe he understood the two are
complementary.

4) http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/486/1/90/ -- A collection
of links to agency GPRA plans maintained by OMB Watch, most, if not all
of
which are in PDF format.

They are among the stakeholders who are going to have to be able to
*see*
the benefits of having such plans rendered in readily referenceable XML
format before they will be able to understand the need for an XSD for
such
plans.  Another stakeholder group that I've been trying to engage but
who
will need to see before they can understand is The Performance Institute
(TPI):  http://www.performanceweb.org/

5) http://xml.gov/documents/completed/aiim3/IECMproposal.pdf -- The
proposal recently adopted and soon-to-be announced by AIIM to specify an
international standard for integrated enterprise content management
(iECM).

Mike Connor of Adobe and Paul Fontaine of the Federal Aviation
Administration drafted the proposal and probably will be leading the
team
pursuing it:  http://xml.gov/documents/completed/aiim3/IECMCoP.pdf

Among the elements of metadata by which it should be possible to query
and
retrieve as well as to assess and evaluate "enterprise content" are
those
required to "link" it, literally, to strategic goals and objectives.

I hope this information is helpful and I look forward to working with
the
BCM TC to develop a "template" for strategic plans with an XSD
representation that can be used to validate and facilitate the sharing
of
"data" contained in the strategic plans of organizations (and perhaps
even
individuals) worldwide.  I hope the members of the BCM TC share that
vision.
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/membership.php?wg_abbrev=bcm
Needless to say, I will be happy to use the limited resources of the
xmlCoP to pursue specification and awareness of the necessary XSD.

In that regard, please note two potential calendar-related
opportunities:

a) No commitments have yet been made on the April 20 agenda of the
xmlCoP,
and

b) while Bob Glushko is tentatively scheduled to speak at our May 18
meeting on the topic of "document engineering," I would love to team him
up with someone(s) who can help focus his presentation on the
"engineering" of strategic plans (i.e., the elements to be specified in
an
XSD for such plans).  http://xml.gov/agendas.asp  (He has expressed
interest in assigning one of his grad students to the task, with a
timeline of a year for the deliverable, but I'd like to think we might
be
able to move faster than that.)

The potential of the *Strategic* Semantic Web beckons.

Owen Ambur, Co-Chair
xmlCoP  http://xml.gov/




-- 
Carl Mattocks
co-Chair OASIS (ISO/TS 15000) ebXMLRegistry Semantic Content SC
co-Chair OASIS Business Centric Methodology TC
CEO CHECKMi
v/f (usa) 908 322 8715
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