The Service-Oriented and User-Centric Enterprise
This PhD thesis is an action design research project, conducted in collaboration with the Information Systems and Services department at EPFL. It involves the understanding of over 400 services, it focuses on service users and includes:
- documenting services in an information systems cartography
- modeling and designing services, and
- verifying the modeled service design against user requirements and other constraints.
Researcher: Gorica Tapandjieva (PhD candidate).
Intuitive Service Modeling
This PhD studies how the SEAM service modeling notation can be made more intuitive for non-service modeling experts. Using grounded theory and action research this PhD evaluates non-experts’ comprehension of SEAM service models, identifies issues perceived by non-experts and proposes heuristics to improve the SEAM notation.
Researcher: George Popescu (PhD candidate).
Change Management and Homeostasis
In this project, we analyze how to favor changes by taking into consideration the homeostatic nature of organizations. By understanding how companies maintain their identity through homeostasis, changes become more durable.
Researcher: Gil Regev (senior researcher)
Challenges and strategies to develop a service-oriented IT group
At EPFL about 300 people are involved in developing IT systems. A reorganization was made in January 2015 to move towards a service-oriented organisation. This project is an action research in which we provide strategic advice on IT governance and we validate how the SEAM service concepts can be applied in a full-scale, long-term, project.
Researcher: Alain Wegmann (professor)
Web platform for system modelling (tool development)
Collaboration with TradeYourMind and SalesForce.com to develop a modeling platform for business and IT analysis and design. The platform supports the development of a business model, its qualitative and quantiative analysis. An extension allows modeling the IT strategy that supports the business strategy. This platform is used in courses and consulting.
Developer: Pierre Castori
Stand-alone modelling tool (tool development)
Development of a stand-alone Java tool for SEAM modeling. The tool supports the generic SEAM notation as well as goal-belief, behavior and value modeling. The tool has extensions for IT system modeling. For example, it is possible to automatically generate Zachman models from a SEAM model and to import SEAM models in Solu-QIQ (a commercial cartography tool).
Developer: Blaise Carrupt
SEAM Game (Serious Game)Development of a serious game using tangible objects.
The goal is to help workshop participants to feel and understand the differences between the multiple viewpoints that exist in a business / IT alignment project.
Developer: Anshuman Saxena (external contractor)