A Value-Based Foundation for Service Modelling

A broader use of e-services for cross enterprise collaboration requires the services to be analysed and designed with a clear business focus. From a business perspective, the e-services must support the primary values that an organization strives for. From an operational perspective, the e-services must be devised such that they support the day-to-day activities in the business. In this paper, we report on an effort to use value models and "service process models" as the foundation for analysis and design of e-services. Value models facilitate the exploration of new e-services, whereas service process models relate e-services to specific activities in an organization's business processes. We elicited a set of principles and models for analysis and design of e-services, and we discussed the experiences of practicing the principles in a project from the health sector. Having a well-defined alignment of software and business values provides benefits for service requirement gathering, service identification and service validation