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Rating: 
Summary: Good start
Review: As a Management Consultant with an IT company, I have always been compelled by ideas to improve communications between the "top" consultants and the actual analysts and programmers. This is a very hard exercice indeed as everybody seems to speak his own language.UML can certainly improve on this and more, but beware, it is not a panacea as it is only a way to express situations. There are still a bunch of loopholes like uniform B-IT patterns that have to be developed (in-house). So, yes indeed, this book gives you more than a few kicks in the butt, but we still have to walk a long walk.
Rating:
Summary: Good start
Review: As a Management Consultant with an IT company, I have always been compelled by ideas to improve communications between the "top" consultants and the actual analysts and programmers. This is a very hard exercice indeed as everybody seems to speak his own language. UML can certainly improve on this and more, but beware, it is not a panacea as it is only a way to express situations. There are still a bunch of loopholes like uniform B-IT patterns that have to be developed (in-house). So, yes indeed, this book gives you more than a few kicks in the butt, but we still have to walk a long walk.
Rating: 
Summary: A fair Overview, but lacking substance
Review: I bought this book by seeing its title. But, when I finished reading it, I did not learn anything new. The book is written as a novel instead of a technical book. Bottom line, I did not get the worth of my money back after reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Could not see the value of the book
Review: I bought this book by seeing its title. But, when I finished reading it, I did not learn anything new. The book is written as a novel instead of a technical book. Bottom line, I did not get the worth of my money back after reading this.
Rating:
Summary: Great inspiration
Review: Reading this book triggers a lot of innovative ideas not only about modeling in UML but also about running and optimizing a business to make it fit for the future. The only problem with the book is that it is much too short: the main body consists of 171 pages only. However, these pages contain very high-desity information. Will there ever be a volume 2?
Rating:
Summary: Great inspiration
Review: Reading this book triggers a lot of innovative ideas not only about modeling in UML but also about running and optimizing a business to make it fit for the future. The only problem with the book is that it is much too short: the main body consists of 171 pages only. However, these pages contain very high-desity information. Will there ever be a volume 2?
Rating: 
Summary: Best Enterprise Metamodel
Review: Simple, subtle, brilliant and powerful (like e=mc^2), this book presents a domain model that encompasses all intra-enterprise and inter-enterprise relationships. How do you model a contract? How do you model "purpose"? How do you model push and pull rights and responsibilities? How do you link these to the company's processes and entities? This book tells you how. Rather than presenting a UML model of how an enterprise functions this book presents a comprehensive UML metamodel based on a "fractal" DFD-like decomposition of organization, purpose, process and flows. The solution here is similar to the book "Java Modeling in Color with UML" use of domain-neutral component archetypes--only better if your goal is reusable code over several enterprises rather than a tuned one-off for a specific corporation.
Rating: 
Summary: Enterprise patterns by another name
Review: This book is annoying. Lack of focus, poor structure and sloppy editing detract from a core set of very useful design patterns for those involved in modelling enterprise wide systems for commercial organisations. The patterns are based around the concept of modelling an enterprise using a "strategic hierarchy" of purpose, processes, entities and organisation (Why this definition for the hierarchy? You'll just have to take the author's word for it). A core design pattern is developed that will suit many commercial enterprises and then detailed patterns are developed for each of the levels of the strategic hierarchy. The patterns cover mainly the static elements of the patterns, although the author does take a look at some of the more dynamic parts of the patterns. If you are involved in the design of enterprise systems for a commercial organisation there are many good ideas to draw on. If you don't expect the UML to be perfect and ignore the structural defects you may find it a useful addition to your store of good design ideas.
Rating:
Summary: A fair Overview, but lacking substance
Review: This book provides a fair description about modeling for basic business components. However, it fails to be useful for specifying a buildable or testable system and does not address enterprise issues. The models in chapters 4 and 5 are useful only for coffee discussions - they are far from practical for business analysts, requirements engineers, testers, and OO designers. Furthermore, it misses the mark by representing OO design as ontology under the disguise of UML diagrams. I was disappointed and expected more from a book that is published in the Object Technology Series.
Rating:
Summary: Nice starting point for real work
Review: Usually I don't like BPR books or others regarding business subjects: they're all contain discussions based on simple common sense. As Marshall starts from the UML perspective, he deals with the issue with great concreteness and, most of all, you can understand there's a way to setup real business models. Don't think this book can show you everything. Instead, watch it as a good starting point if you really want to do business modeling and probably also real BRP. Good work, Chris... but I'm waiting for even more...
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