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Re: [ontolog-forum] stakeholders first?

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Doug McDavid <dougmcdavid@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:54:21 -0800
Message-id: <adc610520911130854y2e9b94e6g3fc9d7c497737dc2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
There's a lot of wisdom in what you write Jack.  I mostly wanted to point out that this looked a bit like the ontologists running around with a tool in search of something to use it on.  Reminded me of the when the SOA people were doing that (still are?), and when object people did it, and when the relational db people did it, etc. etc.  Nothing particularly wrong with it, but if you are embedded with stakeholders you will know who they are and what they need (modulo those happy and unhappy surprises you correctly point out).  There's always matching to be done, but what is taken as the baseline, against which other things are to be matched?

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 8:23 AM, Jack Ring <jring@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Perhaps the majority of forum participants are not interested in this detail. Should we take it off line?
 
Seems to me there are two kinds of systems. One kind, often called the intervention system, suppresses problems that stakeholders, whoever they may be, want 'freedom from ---.' The other kind creates experiences that stakeholders, whoever they may turn out to be, never anticipated. (I am reminded of Peter Drucker's observation that of the wildly successful products, 90% of the sales were for usages that the inventor never imagined.) Accordingly the set, [stakeholders], is a subset of [problematic situation] OR [domain of exploration]. I think this indicates that the prudent ontologist will make identification of stakeholders Step 2 in the process. After the Purpose and Usage are clarfied in Step 1, then the dozen or more types of stakeholders can be identified then the six dozen or more classes of stakeholders can be stated.
 
I recognize that the prevailing sequence is to 'elicit requirements from stakeholders' or to write Use Cases (for which the Actors are simply presumed sans justification) but I also notice that the majority of problem projects have done this instead of first addressing "What's the $&%##* problem?" or "What are we intending to educe?"
 
This distinction is more than fussing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. This distinction is essential in second order situations (wherein the ontology is designed to underpin a system that must be designed not for just the problem that sponsored it but also for the problem that it is going to cause when activated).  Often we find that the stakeholders are the problem, therefore it is the stakeholder] set that must be morphed over time. Presuming the [stakeholder] set up front often bestows mantles of goodness on them, masking the more effective therapy choice.
 
Onward,
Jack Ring
Educe LLC
 
 ----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 8:31 AM
Subject: [ontolog-forum] stakeholders

Jack, Alexander




What criteria will you use to identify stakeholders and from who/where will such criteria come?

There is a discipline that we teach, (profess??)  called 'stakeholder management'.....

we consider the step fundamental to all systems modelling activities, too often disregarded.

 

Seems to me your first step could lead you into a semantic swamp.

well, not defining who should answer questions  leads to all sorts of other swamps......




stakeholders is a misused term, IMHO. I would rather talk about domain experts, within that fauna u have different types of domain experts.


and we have different categories of stakeholders, domain experts being one of them :-)


 
figuring out who is a domain expert depends on the actual task, what is the onto going to be used for -this comes from my experience, probably others have different views on this depending on their experiences.


intended users are also stakeholders


Its a choice, like all other things in life :-)


PDM

 

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Jack Ring <jring@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Paola,
What criteria will you use to identify stakeholders and from who/where will such criteria come?
Isn't the sequence Exchange of knowledge --> Selection of relevant knowledge --> Application of pertinent knowledge?
Seems to me your first step could lead you into a semantic swamp.
Jack
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 8:02 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Garcia's Ontology development method


Yep, but who should answer the question?
The first step in my book is 'identify the stakeholders'

then ask the question  etc etc


On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 2:57 PM, Jack Ring <jring@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Alexander,
Thanks for this.
In Step 1 it is essential to gain semiotic coherence with users who may not
understand or know how to read ontologies. Have you considered CMap,
http://cmap.ihmc.us or other concept mapping aid in this step?
Jack Ring
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexander Garcia" <cagarcia@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:52 AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method


> Hi Marc, check:
> www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2105-7-267.pdf
[...]
> A quick sumary for developing ontologies:
>
> Step 1: The first step involves addressing straightforward questions
> such as: what is the ontology going to be used for? How is the
> ontology ultimately going to be used by the software implementation?
> What do we want the ontology to be aware of, and what is the scope of
> the knowledge we want to have in the ontology?
[..]



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--
Alexander Garcia
http://www.alexandergarcia.name/
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Alexander Garcia, Tel.: +49 421 218 64211
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--

Doug McDavid
dougmcdavid@xxxxxxxxx
916-549-4600

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