The document discusses the problem of inefficiency in IT projects due to poor communication between team members. It presents Fundamental Modeling Concepts (FMC) as a solution to improve communication by providing team members with a shared global view of the system being developed. FMC uses engineering diagrams and a conceptual language to model the compositional structure, material, and processes of a system in a way that is comprehensible to humans. The diagrams are meant to be used in "root documents" that link to all other information items in a project repository.

1. Title 1. The problem 2. The solution: Fundamental Modeling Concepts (FMC) Fundamental Modeling Concepts (FMC)

2. Symptom The symptom of the problem: Inefficiency means bad relation between effort and result. Compared with projects in traditional engineering fields, IT-projects are inefficient. With respect to a given effort the result (funcionality, performance, robustness, changeability, … ) is not good enough. With respect to a required result the effort (time and cost) is too high.

3. Cause effort (time spent for talking and for producing and reading documents) and result (scope and consistency of shared knowledge). The cause of the problem: The inefficiency of IT-projects is a consequence of the inefficiency of the communication between the people involved. Inefficiency of the communication means bad relation between

4. Communication in Hierarchies Efficiency of Communication: Extreme Difference between Traditional Engineering and Software Engineering

5. Hypothesis Hypothesis: Efficient communication requires that all people involved have the same global view on the system which is created or changed by the project. The elements on the documents showing the global view are the roots for the paths leading to all information items produced in the project.

6. „ Look“ of the System Die Schwere des Problems Why is it so difficult to make Engineering Diagrams which show a Global View on a complex Software System?

7. No diagrams of software systems Nobody has ever seen any Engineering Diagrams showing the Operating System „UNIX“ or the Application System “Microsoft Excel”. Why don’t they see this as a serious problem? Professors of Software Engineering don’t know (or don’t care) how to make such diagrams ! Therefore, it is no wonder, that their students don’t know it either.

8. Formalisms and human understanding Because they think as Mathematicians and not as Engineers! They don‘t see that human understanding - is the basis for optimizing the division of labor - and cannot be formalized. They believe that they can solve the problems by finding adequate formalisms .

9. Diagrams in Engineering In traditional engineering , planning engineers create Texts + Engineering diagrams showing the system In software engineering , planning engineers create + Fuzzy diagrams showing the system + Texts Engineering diagrams showing the details „ PowerPointing“ instead of Engineering

10. Characteristics of Engineering Culture The Characteristics of Engineering Culture: - Strict Separation between Science and Engineering As Electrical Engineering is separated from Physics, Software Engineering must be separated from Computer Science. - Focus on Optimizing the Division of Labor Standards of Human Centered Description Methods are used. Formal Methods are Machine Centered, and therefore they are only useful after the labor has been divided. Engineering is not just Applied Mathematics and Applied Physics.

11. Consequences of the Hypotheses There is an urgent need for (1) a „conceptual language“ for the representation of the global view on a system. (2) a multi user tool - for editing the global view documents - for linking all other types of information items to the global view roots - for generating status views and reports. Fundamental Modeling Concepts (FMC)

12. FMC www.fmc-modeling.com F undamental M odeling C oncepts Andreas Knöpfel, Bernhard Gröne, Peter Tabeling Fundamental Modeling Concepts Wiley, 2006

13. Four Sectors System Software Subject of Description Descriptions (Engineering Documents) FMC has been developed for this.

15. The three basic aspects Three fundamental aspects The description of a discrete dynamic system must cover the following aspects: Compositional Structure: Where is material stored or flowing and who is acting on this material? Material: What kind of material is stored or flowing? Process: When do the actions occur (relative order of steps)?

16. Structures of Chess

17. Structures of a Compiler System and Software Does a Compiler look like this ? No !

18. Role of FMC FMC is a supplement of our natural language for optimal interpersonal communication about dynamic systems of any kind. The Role of FMC in Software Engineering: Because of its symbolic simplicity and its natural comprehensibility FMC should be used in the „root documents“ to which all other information items in a project repository can be linked.

19. Cockpit in its environment

20. End Fundamental Modeling Concepts (FMC) The End