EXTENDING DEMO - CONTROL ORGANIZATION MODEL

Modeling an Organization's Viability Norms, Dysfunctions

and Resilience Strategies

David Aveiro

Exact Sciences and Engineering Centre, University of Madeira, Caminho da Penteada 9000-390, Funchal, Portugal

A. Rito Silva, José Tribolet

Department of Information Systems and Computer Science, Instituto Superior Técnico

Technical University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

Keywords: DEMO, Control, Viability, Dysfunction, Exception handling.

Abstract: In this paper we present part of an extension to the Design and Engineering Methodology for Organizations

(DEMO) – a proposal for an ontological model for the generic Control Organization that we argue that ex-

ists in every organization. With our proposal, DEMO can now be used to explicitly specify critical proper-

ties of an organization – that we call measures – whose value must respect certain restrictions imposed by

other properties of the organization – that we call viability norms. We can now also precisely specify, with

DEMO, defined resilience strategies that control and eliminate dysfunctions – violations of viability norms.

1 INTRODUCTION

Our initial research efforts had the general purpose

of understanding and clarifying what the function

perspective of an organization should be. As a result

of a review that we undertook on how this concept is

used in such diverse areas as enterprise engineering,

information systems, biology, sociology and phi-

losophy – e.g. (Applegate, McFarlan & McKenney,

1999), (Christensen & Bickhard, 2002) and (Dietz,

2006) – we found that, besides the aspect of behav-

ior, also central to the function concept is the nor-

mative aspect, that is, the existence of certain nor-

mally expected values – norms – for certain vital

properties of a system. In an organization, deviations

from such norms imply a state of dysfunction that

can possibly compromise its viability. In this paper

we present examples from the scenario of a library –

introduced in (Dietz, 2006) and extended in our re-

search – as to better accommodate concepts we're

proposing. The main activities of the library are

book loaning and offer book history courses. We can

define three norms: (1) min average number of reg-

istrants in book history courses 1 week before start

is 14, (2) min total income per month is 900€ and (3)

max loan declines per week is 30. A possible dys-

function in the second norm is: average number of

registrants in book history courses is 7 on March

23th 2009.

Figure 1: Control Organization's SSD.

489

Aveiro D., Silva A. and Tribolet J. (2010).

EXTENDING DEMO - CONTROL ORGANIZATION MODEL - Modeling an Organization’s Viability Norms, Dysfunctions and Resilience Strategies.

In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Information Systems Analysis and Speciﬁcation, pages

489-492

DOI: 10.5220/0002908704890492

 SciTePress

This can be a very serious situation because, as a

consequence, the library may lose income needed to

acquire enough resources and eventually go bank-

rupt, closing down the business. Dysfunctions will

have a cause which may be expected or unexpected.

If the cause is expected, certain resilience strategies

may already exist that can be activated to eliminate

or circumvent dysfunctions (Holland, 1996). From

several approaches to support Organizational Engi-

neering being proposed, DEMO seems to be one of

the most coherent, comprehensive, consistent and

concise (Dietz, 2006). It has shown to be useful in a

number of applications, from small to large scale

organizations – see, for example, (Op' t Land, 2008)

(p. 39). Nevertheless, DEMO models have been

mostly used to devise blueprints to serve as instru-

ments for discussion of broader scale organizational

change or development/change of IT systems (Op' t

Land, 2008) (p. 58) and does not, yet, provide mod-

eling constructs and a method for the continuous

control (resilience) that we need to exert on organi-

zations to guarantee viability. Contributions of our

research – part of which is presented in the next sec-

tion – extend DEMO, with the devising of concepts

and a method that systematically address the referred

shortcoming. The reader which is unfamiliar with

DEMO is advised to consult (Dietz, 2006) or publi-

cations in: www.demo.nl.

2 CONTROL ORGANIZATION

One of the contributions of our research is to apply

DEMO to model what we propose to call the Control

Organization. The Control Organization's ontologi-

cal model (COM) is the specification of a generic

organization considered to exist included in every

organization and responsible for controlling its vi-

ability. It clearly and precisely specifies (1) accepted

outcomes of organizational behavior so that viability

is guaranteed, as well as (2) resilience strategies that

can be activated or deactivated, as to eliminate dys-

functions caused by expected exceptions. For audit-

ing reasons and to aid organizational change, we

should keep structured information of the state and

dynamics of control acts which may be very useful

to trace a new previously unexpected exception

causing a need for change. We next present one of

the main aspect models of the COM, namely the

CO's State Model (CO's SM) which is expressed, in

World Ontology Specification Languate (WOSL)

(Dietz, 2005) in Figure 1, consisting in the CO's

State Space Diagram (CO's SSD). WOSL is highly

based in the ORM fact oriented modeling language

(Halpin, 1998), extending it with the ability of mod-

eling events (result kinds) affecting facts. In prac-

tice, the CO's SSD is a default subset of the SSD of

every organization. For separation of concerns rea-

sons we model the CO as a “separate” organization,

although, in practice, it is included in the controlled

organization itself. A similar reasoning applies to the

other aspect models of the CO: the CO's CM and the

CO's AM, which, for space reasons, are left out of

this paper. As a central piece in the CO's SM, we

specify object class DYSFUNCTION, of which in-

stances will aggregate all kinds of useful information

regarding a certain dysfunction. Special and also

fundamental pieces of the CO's SM are object

classes MEASURE and VIABILITY NORM.

2.1 Measures and Viability Norms

Norms specify values for properties of the organiza-

tion system that need to be respected so that viability

is maintained. We propose to call such properties as

measures and norms as viability norms, as they spec-

ify allowed states for certain measures of an organi-

zation which guarantee its viability. We find in

(Dietz, 2006) the Object Property List, part of the

SM, as a convenient way of specifying fact types

that are proper (mathematical) functions, and of

which the range is a set of values. The fact types in

an OPL are called properties (of object classes). We

observe, from the OPL of the library (Dietz, 2006),

that certain properties specify restrictions on another

property. E.g, we have property max_copies_in_loan

which specifies the maximum (restriction) number

of book copies a certain member of the library is

allowed to have in loan (property). This (restriction)

property is checked in the action rule that decides on

an acceptance or a decline in transaction loan start. It

logically follows that, in the SM of a certain organi-

zation, certain properties will have to be declared

that specify restrictions on certain measures related

to its information banks (i.e., to its production and

coordination information). Taking the case of the

library, one of its production banks is PB01, also

named by alias membership fee payments. To make

sure one is able to cover all expenses of the library,

we will need to measure a relevant property of

PB01, namely, total income per month. As a viabil-

ity norm, we need to declare a certain necessary

minimum income per month. We do this with prop-

erty min total income per month. To detect possible

problems in loans, we will also need to measure a

relevant property of coordination bank CB04,

namely, loan declines per week. As a viability norm

we need to declare a certain maximum of declines

per week. We do this with property max total loan

declines per week. Object class MEASURE, of the

CO's SM, represents the aggregation of all properties

ICEIS 2010 - 12th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

490

of the main organization's SM which are measures

related with information banks. In other words. these

are a subset of the properties of an organization

which constitute measures that will be repeatedly

observed (measured) for control ends. Certain other

properties of an organization will impose restrictions

on properties that are measures, so that viability is

guaranteed. Object class VIABILITY NORM of the

CO's SM represents the aggregation of all these re-

striction properties part of the main organization's

SM. Besides knowing which properties of the main

organization are measures and viability norms, the

CO needs to know explicitly which are the viability

norms imposed on each measure. We model this

need with the fact type, explained by predicative

sentence: [viability norm] restricts [measure]. We

propose a table to express the above proposed part of

the CO's SM, namely the Measures and Viability

Norms Table (MVNT) which, for the case of the

library, is expressed in Table 1.

Table 1: Measures and Viability Norms Table.

Measure Viability norm Scale

total income per month min total income per month

EURO

loan declines per week max loan declines per week

NUMBER

average # of registrants

in lang. history courses

1 week before start

min average # of registrants in lang.

history courses 1 week before start

NUMBER

2.2 Exceptions and Resilience

Strategies

We propose object class EXCEPTION KIND, de-

picted in the CO's SSD, so that we can specify

(known) exception kinds. We will need to relate

each exception kind with a viability norm which can

be in a dysfunction state due to instances of such

exception kind. This relation is specified by the fact

type: [exception kind] can cause dysfunction in [vi-

ability norm]. We propose also object class RESIL-

IENCE STRATEGY, so that we can specify resil-

ience strategies that can solve (known) exception

kinds. We will need to relate each resilience strategy

with the exception(s) that is(are) solved by it. This

relation is specified by the fact type: [resilience

strategy] can solve [exception kind]. We propose

another table to express this other part of the CO's

SM, namely, the Exceptions and Resilience Strate-

gies Table (ERST). Before presenting the ERST of

the library, we need to extend the library scenario

with additional information. Let's consider the case

that the library regularly sets up courses of book

history. Classes need to have a min average number

of registrants 1 week before start to generate the

necessary income for expenses with room renting.

As an example of a dysfunction, the starting date of

the courses is just 1 week ahead and classes have, on

average, only 9 registrants when minimum is 14.

Two expected exceptions for this kind of dysfunc-

tion are lack of advertisement of courses and general

lack of interest in courses. Three resilience strategies

exist as a solution to these exceptions: (1) distribute

course fliers so that such marketing can bring more

registrations in time, (2) reduce number of classes

where it is necessary to close classes and call stu-

dents to transfer them to other classes (so that mini-

mum in each class is reached), to change property

number of alternative classes per week (reduce its

value) and also to change viability norm min total

income per month (reduce its value) as expenses

with renting rooms will be reduced and (3) delay

courses start so that, with current rate of registra-

tions per week, classes can reach accepted minimum

for starting. It also happens that, in some years,

many students see their loan requests declined as

they reached the allowed limit of maximum loans,

leading to an abnormal rate of declines in loans.

However, this usually happens due to the expected

exception of, in exams season, being necessary for

the students to loan more books than normally al-

lowed. As it is of interest to the library to earn some

more income and history has proven that it is not a

risk to temporarily increase maximum allowed loans

in this situation, a resilience strategy of increasing

this limit for one month (duration of exams season)

has been generated and operationalized. The above

presented exceptions and resilience strategies are

expressed in the ERST of the library, in Table 2,

along with the viability norms that can be in dys-

function as a consequence of these exceptions.

Table 2: Exceptions and Resilience Strategies Table.

Viability norm Exception Resilience strategy

min average # of

registrants in lang.

history courses 1 week

before start

lack of advertisement

of courses

distribute course fliers

general lack of interest

in courses

reduce number of

classes

delay courses start

max loan declines per

month

abnormal high rate of

loan requests due to

exams season

increase value of

max_copies_in_loan

3 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we have presented part of our proposal

of the DEMO based ontological model of the control

organization (CO). We consider that the CO implic-

itly exists in every organization and is responsible

for exerting control as to eliminate dysfunctions

caused by known exceptions occuring in the organi-

zation's activity. The State Model of the CO is pre-

sented, along with two tables we propose to elicit

EXTENDING DEMO - CONTROL ORGANIZATION MODEL - Modeling an Organization's Viability Norms,

Dysfunctions and Resilience Strategies

491

useful information related to it: the Measures and

Viability Norms Table (MVNT) and the Exceptions

and Resilience Strategies Table (ERST). The practi-

cal relevance of the first is a quick and summarized

glance on which are the critical variables – measures

– on which to evaluate an organization's viability

and what restrictions – viability norms – apply for

them so that one can determine if dysfunctions are

happening or not. In many kinds of situations of

occurrence of expected exceptions or necessity of

change, information of these measures and restric-

tions on them is essential to assess change impact

and eventually establish new values for such restric-

tions. The practical relevance of the ERST is to pro-

vide a comprehensive and summarized view of

which exceptions exist that can cause dysfunction on

an organization's viability norms and which resil-

ience strategies can be activated to solve such excep-

tions and eliminate the dysfunction. When an ex-

pected exception occurs, the several alternatives that

exist to solve it are easily accessible so that the re-

sponsible controller can decide on the more adequate

choice. For space reasons, we leave out of this paper

several relevant parts of our proposal for the CO

which can be consulted fully in (Aveiro, 2010) but

are referred briefly next. Namely, to express other

relevant information specified by the CO's SM, we

propose the Control and Responsibilities Table

(CRT), useful to clearly express two dimensions of

responsibility of control of certain viability norms,

namely who and when. This will be very helpful for

auditing ends in quickly and clearly identifying re-

sponsibilities in case dysfunctions happen and de-

fined resilience strategies were not activated in the

most appropriate manner. We propose also the Re-

silience Strategy Definition Table, essential to pro-

vide a comprehensive view of details of each resil-

ience strategy and, in the context of organizational

change, provide, along with the ERST, clues on how

to solve new previously unexpected exceptions. This

follows the premise from Complex Adaptive Sys-

tems (CAS) theory that, to solve new exceptions,

“rule pieces” that constitute current resilience strate-

gies that solve similar exceptions may be re-utilized

to build new resilience strategies to solve the new

exceptions (Holland, 1996). The Dysfunctions Table

(DT) provides a summary of current (unsolved) dys-

functions and recent or past (solved) dysfunctions.

This will be useful, for example, in diagnosing a

recurrent previously unexpected exception. It will

also be an instrument for the “controllers of the con-

trollers” so that higher hierarchy in the organization

can act if certain dysfunctions are not being appro-

priately handled in time by their responsible control-

lers. Finally, the Dysfunctions Diagnosis and Ac-

tions Table (DDAT), provides a summary of the

history of choices of dysfunction diagnosis and solu-

tions. Together with the DFT and CRT, this table

will provide a succinct and thorough trace of rele-

vant control decisions of an organization, so that

adequate measures can be taken against irresponsi-

ble agents, in a justified and detailed manner. Count-

ing the good and bad choices of diagnosis and resil-

ience strategies is a way to implement another prem-

ise from CAS, which is a scoring mechanism which

can help on better deciding on which resilience

strategies to associate with new (previously unex-

pected) exceptions or on the design of new resilience

strategies.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research work that led to results presented in this

paper was possible thanks to the financial support of

a PhD scholarship (Ref.: SFRH / BD / 13384 / 2003)

subsidized by “Fundação para a Ciência e a Tec-

nologia - Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Ensino

Superior” of the Portuguese government and by the

European Social Fund.

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