A short workshop on Content Modelling delivered at TC World / Tekom 2013 in Wiesbaden, Germany. This workshop digs into some of the fundamental concepts and techniques that need to be weighed when framing an effective approach Content Modelling. Essentially introduces the influences, including a sojourn at MIT where I encountered the Object Process Methodology, that led to a "Content Modelling Technique".

1. Content
Modelling
Copyright © Joe Gollner 2013
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
jag@gnostyx.com
www.gollner.ca
@joegollner

2. Workshop Topics
Core Concepts & Terminology
Perspectives on
Content Modelling
Content Modelling
Technique
The Three Key Sides to
Content Modelling
Content Types
Content Composition
Content Processes

3. Core Concepts & Terminology

4. Core Concepts: Content & Information
Content
Is what we
plan, design, create, reuse & manage
so that we can deliver effective
information products
Content is potential information (an asset)
Information
Is the meaningful organization of data
communicated in a specific context
with the purpose of influencing others
Information is a transaction (an action)
Information transactions contain content

5. Related Definitions
Publishing
The process of transforming
content assets
into information products
that can be effectively transacted
Documents
Documents are the persistent form of
information transactions that have been
exchanged as part of a business process.
Documents are a fact of life & can take
many forms.

6. Building Blocks in the Content Lifecycle
Content
Acquisition
Creation
Content
Acquisition
Content
Delivery
Content
Management
Content
Engagement
Content
Delivery
Publishing
Content
Engagement
Use
Content Management
Control

7. Content Strategy
A strategy is a plan of action
directed towards achieving
a long-term goal through the
coordination, integration
and application of the
resources and capabilities
available to an enterprise
Content
Acquisition
Content
Delivery
Content
Strategy
Content
Management
Content
Engagement
A Content Strategy seeks to make content a strategic asset that
can be leveraged by state-of-the-art technology to achieve
concrete business goals. This strategy will set out a plan of
balanced investments to improve how content is acquired,
delivered, engaged and managed. A Content Strategy also, and
perhaps primarily, determines what content is needed & why.

8. Questions Surrounding the Content Lifecycle
• Content is only
usefully understood
as part of its lifecycle
Content
Acquisition
Content
Delivery
• Where it comes from?
Content
Strategy
• Where it goes?
• Who is responsible
for it?
• Why is it created
in the first place?
Content
Management
Content
Engagement
• How is it published?
• How many different information products will it support?
• How are the published information products used?

9. The Role of Content Architecture
Content
Acquisition
Content
Strategy
Content Model
A detailed model of the
content and its lifecycle
Identifies:
· Content Types
· Content Composition
· Content Process Steps
Establishes the point
of reference for all
content solution
implementation activities
Content
Delivery
Content
Management
Content Architecture
Content
Engagement
Content Solution

10. Perspectives on Content Modelling

11. Content Archeology
Identifying & studying
content “in the wild” &
following the paths inside
Often a major
revelation for
content
owners
Rahel Bailie
www.intentionaldesign.ca

12. Understanding the Content Inside
Developing a model of what happens behind the
page in order to design a content architecture that
will govern a content management solution
Cleve Gibbon
www.clevegibbon.com
Applying the all-important
discipline of abstraction
in order to establish more
general technical solutions

13. Unified Modeling Language (UML 2.0)
UML is a standardized
modeling language for
designing software
applications
www.uml.org
Object Management
Group (OMG)
Use Case Diagrams
Models the interaction
between users and
the software application
System perspectice

14. Unified Modeling Language (UML 2.0)
Class Diagrams
Used to model the static
structure of a system
Models the classes in a
system, including their
attributes, methods, and
relationships
Can be applied to the
content resources within a
system and their attributes
and relationships
•
•
•
Type Hierarchies
Composition
Other relationships

15. Business Process Model & Notation (BPMN)
BPMN 2.0 is from the Object Management Group (OMG)
as a tool for understanding, graphically, business procedures
www.bpmn.org
Jackie Damrau & Joe Gollner – Business Process Workshop (2013)

16. Case Study: A Breakdown in Modeling
Large-scale
software project
$225 million
Content & document
handling processes
Modeling Approach
UML & full suite of Enterprise software design tools
International specialists brought onboard to assist in planning
Substantial budget set aside for stakeholder engagement
Result
Communication breakdown. Models not understood at all.

17. Modelling Content Structures
Microstar Near & Far
Document Type Definition (DTD) Visual Modeller
Very popular & dearly missed
Simple enough to show executives
Only addressed content structure

18. Looking for a Better Answer

19. Object Process Methodology (OPM)
Designed as a unification & rationalization
of UML providing an integrated, single view
of complex systems
Prof Dov Dori
Israel Institute
of Technology &
MIT
www.opcat.com

20. OPM Modeling Notation
Object
Process
Object States
1
2
Relationships
Agent Link
Effect Link
Integrated modeling notation
designed for complex systems
Establishes Objects and
Processes as the two
fundamental building blocks
Processes change Objects
Exhibits
Single modeling view
- Inheritance
- Composition
- Process flow

21. The Search Continued
Alternatives were unsatisfying in being either:
Too complex to use with executive & business stakeholders
Too oriented towards software design
•
UML / OPM
Too superficial to facilitate a rigorous understanding of
content & content processes for the purposes of automation
•
Flowcharting / BPMN
Too limited in only representing content structures but not
processing events
•
Near & Far / Visual tools for modelling XML Schemas

22. Content Modelling Technique

23. The Search for a Content Modelling Technique
A Content Modelling Technique could be
constructed from:
Object Process Methodology (OPM)
•
Basic framework where objects & processes are treated as peers
IDEF0 Function Modelling
•
General principles for representing manufacturing processes
Object Modeling Technique (OMT)
•
Visually elegant precursor to UML
A strict discipline could be applied to limit the visual complexity
of diagrams while addressing the needs of content modelling

24. Drawing on Multiple Sources: IDEF0
IDEF0 – Function Modelling
ICAM Definition for Function Modelling
ICAM – Integration Computer-Aided
Manufacturing

25. Object Modeling Technique (OMT)
OMT
Modelling
technique
developed in
1991 by a team
led by James
Rumbaugh (a
later contributor
to UML)

26. Content Modelling Technique - Notation
Content Modelling Technique (CMT)
A modeling technique that provides a systematic and disciplined way to represent content objects and processes
in the context of business goals and responsibilities assumed by organizations or individuals (actors).
Object
Objects are “things” that can be
used, consumed, produced or
called upon to provide a service.
Process
Processes act upon “objects” in order to
change their state. Processes may use,
consume, produce objects or depend
upon the services from objects.
Order
Start
Inheritance
Composition
Choice
Details
Actors assume responsibility for
outcomes. Actors can call upon
processes, objects & other actors.
Annotation
Choice
Actor
One or more
Zero or more
End
Flow
One
Zero or one
Relationship Cardinality
Three Building Blocks:
- Objects
- Processes
- Actors
What’s New: Actors
- Elevation of OPM Agent link
- Analogous to the UML Actor
- Actors are people or organizations
who are responsible for outcomes

27. CMT Objects
Object
Object
“Thing” that can be acted upon
•
Object
Attributes
Examples:
• Document Artifact
• Information Resource
• Content Asset
Can exhibit Attributes
States can be changed by processes
Can be used in the sense of an object in O-O
analysis & design to encapsulate behaviour

28. CMT Processes
Process
Process
Activity that can act upon,
and change the state of, objects
Can be manual or automated or a combination
Can be broken down into discrete process steps
Must always have at least one object as an input
Must always have at least one object as an output
Process steps are connected by object transfers

29. CMT Actors
Actor
Actor
Nexus of responsibility
•
•
Individual
Organization
Responsible for a process & its outcomes
“Owns” objects
Can play one or more roles in a process
•
Examples:
• Creator
• Approver

30. CMT Inheritance
Inheritance
Establish a type hierarchy classification scheme
exhibiting “is-a” relationships
Inheritance
•
•
A Taxonomy
Child types are said to be specializations
of the more general types
Examples
•
Content Type specialization
• A test is a specialized
form of a task
•
Actor Type specialization
• Business Analyst &
Technical Analyst are
types of Analyst
task
test
Analyst
Business
Analyst
Technical
Analyst

31. CMT Composition
Composition
Composition
Establishes the make-up of an entity
Hierarchical classification scheme based on the
breakdown of an entity into its constituent parts
A “Part-ology”
Document
Examples
Content Object decomposition
Approval
Process decomposition
Review
Testing
Sign-off
Front
Matter
Body
Rear
Matter

32. CMT Relationships
Cardinality
One or more
Represents key cases
Avoids over-specification
•
•
e.g., Min 1 Max 4
These are constraints that
can, and should, be specified
separately (implementation detail)
Organization
Zero or more
One
Zero or one
Relationship Cardinality
Order
Choice
How entities will appear
Process Flow
Start
End
Flow
Movement of objects through process steps

33. CMT in Action: A Simple Example
Establish Project Requirements
Project
Team
Customer
Identify
Needs
Business
Needs
Document
Document
Requirements
Use Case
•
•
•
•
Testing
Team
Draft
Requirements
Specification
Test Case
System
Constraint
Requirements
Validation
Prototyping
Technical
Proof of
Concept
Baseline
Requirements
Specification
Usability
Testing
Different types of Actors shown: Customer, Project Team, Testing Team
Content objects connect each process
Decomposition shown for an object, a process & an actor
Different cardinalities are shown:
optional, optional but repeatable, mandatory, mandatory and repeatable

34. Selective Views of a CMT Model
Actors
Flow of
Responsibility
Process
Customer
Identify
Needs
Project
Team
Document
Requirements
Testing
Team
Requirements
Validation
Business
process model
Object
Business
Needs
Document
State Transition model
Draft
Requirements
Specification
Baseline
Requirements
Specification

35. Drilling Down into the Details
Establish Project Requirements
Project
Team
Customer
Business
Needs
Document
Identify
Needs
Test Setup
Draft
Requirements
Specification
Document
Requirements
Use Case
Task Setup
Testing
Team
Task Steps
Test Steps
Test Case
Task Result
Test Result
Baseline
Requirements
Specification
Requirements
Validation
System
Constraint
Identify
Uncertainties
Prototyping
Plan
Experiments
Technical
Proof of
Concept
Conduct
Experiments
Usability
Testing
Document
Results

36. Reflections on Content Modelling Technique
Content Modelling Technique
Has been fashioned from numerous modelling precedents
Has been consciously tailored to align with common
features of content objects and processes
Has been stripped of as much visual detail as possible
so that CMT models can be used to communicate
with executive and business stakeholders
Has been designed to emphasize three relationship types
•
•
•
Content type hierarchies
Content composition
Content processing

37. Content Types

38. Modelling Content Types
Identify atomic types
Establish familial
relationships between types
What types are specialized
examples of more general
types (facilitates processing)
Selective View of a DITA Task Specialized as a Test
taskbody
testSetup
unitOfMeasure
uomSpan
uomVelocity
uomVoltage
fps
mph
stepsection
testBody
Units of Measure
Taxonomy
task
test
step
testStep
mps
kmph

39. Content Composition

40. Modelling Content Composition
Content assets are typically
described in terms of what
they contain
What they are made up of
Published information
products (documents)
are likewise composed
of content assets
assembled in a
specific order &
processed in a
specific way
note
Specialized
DITA Step
cmd
testDataRef
choices
itemgroup
step
testStep
stepresult
testResult
choicetable
stepxml
substeps
info

41. Content Processing

42. Modelling Content Processes
Processes can be broken
down to as low a level of
detail as is necessary
Processes will encompass
business events (approvals),
tasks performed by people (writing),
and automated steps
(validations, transformations, transmittals,…)
Understanding the processes will ultimately
determine what level of detail must be modelled in
the content assets

43. Modelling Processes in Content Environments
Prime
Contractor
Solution
Implementation
Project
Plan
Project
Coordinate
SubContractor
Projects
SubContractor
Content processes frequently cross
organizational boundaries
- Suppliers
Provides a form of organizational
encapsulation
Integrate
Solution
Initiate
Solution
Support
Solution
In this example, one actor (Prime) is responsible
for the project while other actors (Subs) are a
mechanism for performing a specific sub-process

44. Summary
Content Modelling Technique (CMT) offers
A simplified modelling notation that has been tailored to
modelling content & content processes
•
Supports the all important engagement of non-technical stakeholders
Focuses on modelling three forms of relationship that are
critical to understanding content & content processes
•
•
•
Content type hierarchies
Content composition
Content processing
Retains sufficient theoretical rigour to facilitate the
construction of content models precise enough to facilitate
the application of efficient & effective automation

45. Questions & Comments

46. Making Connections
Joe Gollner
Gnostyx Research Inc.
www.gnostyx.com
jag@gnostyx.com
Twitter: @joegollner
Blog: The Content Philosopher
www.gollner.ca