=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2574/short13
|storemode=property
|title=Productization of Business Models by Affordance (short paper)
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2574/short13.pdf
|volume=Vol-2574
|authors=Anders W. Tell
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/vmbo/Tell20
}}
==Productization of Business Models by Affordance (short paper)==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2574/short13.pdf
Productization of Business Models by Affordance
Anders W. Tell, Stockholm University, anderswt@dsv.su.se
Abstract. Business and enterprise models are information products that
people use in work they do with each other. Information products satisfy workers
information needs during their deliberations and decision making. This paper
continues to build on a work oriented approach to modelling where business
models are treated as products created by producers, such as experts or
professional modelers, and consumed by workers. In this paper the idea of
affordance of products is introduced to enrich discussions about the range of
possibilities that products can provide to workers. The addition of affordance,
situational knowledge and work practices can improve relevance, effectiveness
and other qualities of products. The productization of business and enterprise
models enables knowledge and experiences from fields such as new product
development, design, and startup to be used in the practices of enterprise and
business modeling. The work oriented approach provides a sound basis for
evaluations of the use of information products.
Keywords. Enterprise modeling, affordance, situational knowledge, product
design, design thinking, design science research, practice
1 1 Introduction
Business and enterprise models are artifacts used by people in work they do with each
other. These models are typically designed and developed by someone with a purpose
and a target audience in mind, and a focus on a particular aspect of the enterprise, e.g.
processes, business rules, information, vision/goals, and actors [24].
This paper continues to build on the work oriented approach to modeling as
introduced at VMBO 2019 [1] by introducing the idea of ‘affordance’.
In the work oriented approach business and enterprise models are treated as
(information-) products developed to serve (information-) needs. This enables the
incorporation of knowledge and experiences from fields such as product development,
design and innovation [2].
In particular, when treating enterprise models as products the development process
can be seen as going through a journey, from conceptualization and development to
evaluation of problem-solution fit and onwards. At each stage there is often a decision
to continue, modify the product, do a pivot or discontinue the journey. In the stage of
Product-Market Fit questions are asked such as, do the users actually use the product
and pay for it? If not, then pivot, modify, or discontinue. A supplied product push out
possibilities, features and benefits in use. At the same time customers pull in what they
desire and what they consider as useful.
This suggests that for a viable situation to occur the product-push and customer-pull
must meet, align and fit over time.
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Copyright © 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
The affordance of a product represents the set of possibilities made available by
something (artifact, feature, product, solution, etcetera). The affordance enrich the
product side of the consumer-producer duality and can be used to evaluate the fit
between consumers needs and the possibilities offered by the producers product.
The idea of affordance together with the other aspects of the work oriented approach
provide a sound basis for the definition of a balanced evaluation model of use of
information products. Affordance adds a key consideration that is particularly
important in today’s digital world where digital products provide new and disruptive
possibilities.
2 The work oriented productization approach
2.1 Producer, Consumer and the Change space in between
The work oriented approach introduces the traditional duality and bifocality between
the consumer (buyer) and the producer (seller) of (information-) products. This duality
enables analysis and theorizing of both sides as well as of the differences or fit between
needs and products analogously to new product development, sales and marketing.
The productization forms a structure of three spaces that all need to be considered
when buying, using or developing (information-) products. The work space (or problem
space) (see sections 2.2, 2.3) represents aspects of the consumer side and contains work
situations with derived needs and requirements. The product space (or solution space)
(see section 2.4) represents the producer side and contains products with their
affordance. The change space (see sections 2.5, 2.6) represents links and relationships
between work situations and products, and contains differences, fit, and changes
between the work situations and products.
In design and development all three spaces must be explored and searched to find an
overall situation that is suitable, viable and desirable by participants (see section 2.6).
Difference, FIT
Consumer Producer
Work Space Change Space Product Space
Figure 1 Illustration of the three key spaces
In many methods the focus is on addressing the two sides of a duality such as
produce-consume, and problem-solution in design [3] [2] [4]. However the change
space is also important to consider since it has a material impact on the development
and choice of both products and work-to-be-done.
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Benefit realization, change management, and impact analysis [5] are domains and
practices that specifically address the change space.
The work oriented approach facilitates analysis of asymmetrical cases where
modelers (producers) develop (information-) products for their own needs but where
the products may not fit with the needs of the intended consumer or audience. Another
asymmetrical case is when a producer (seller) self-report features and expected
customer values of a product, hoping that consumer will buy and use it.
2.2 Consumer anchoring: Situational knowledge
The first part of the work oriented approach is the work situation where (information-)
products are intended to be used or are actually used by consumers, the Interested
Parties [1]
In the “Capabilities and Work Practices” [6] empirical study, questions were asked
to participants from different work practices about their use and utility of the concept
of capability. The answers revealed differences in opinions between the enterprise
architecture model producers and the consumers leading to the observation that
producers and consumers not always view the world with the same lenses.
The situational knowledge incorporates knowledge about work people perform with
each other and subsequently anchors use of (information-) products.
The characterization of a (work) situation includes the following aspects [1]:
• General Situational aspects [7],
• Work oriented aspects [8] [9] [10] [11]
o feelings, thinking, hearing, speaking, seeing, sensing,
o doings, actual work, tasks, practices, routines, value activities,
o work flows, work journeys,
o objectives, results, outcomes,
o ways of working, ways of thinking,
o questions asked, decisions made,
o techniques, tools, deliverables, work products,
o professions, organisational jobs, positions.
This work-to-be-done knowledge can be used to tailor, frame, constrain,
contextualise, configure, or regulate the development and use of (information-)
products [9]. In the “A Method for Situating Capability Viewpoints” paper [9], a
method is introduced that can be used to tailor and adapt existing (information-)
products to fit with work people do with others. This method is based on situational
method engineering [12].
The situational (work) knowledge provides a base for a neutral and balanced work
quality model that can be used for validations where users (consumers) participate
directly without a mediation through experts (producers) that may self-report success
or fulfilment of requirements.
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The work oriented approach share characteristics with the Jobs-to-be-Done theory
[13, 14], which have made a significant inroad into the innovation, design and product
development fields.
The following figure 2 provides an illustration of the key elements of the work
oriented approach and productization of (information-) products. See following
sections for information about each part.
Consumer Producer
Interested Situational Situational
Party Knowledge Need / FIT Knowledge Modeller /
Requirement Affordance Drafter /
Architect /
Requirements
Work to be Information Information Product Engineer /
Change
Done Product Product Creation Analyst
Figure 2 Illustration of the work oriented approach to modelling
2.3 Consumer: Situational knowledge as source for needs, insights and
requirements
The work oriented approach complements or rather extends traditional practices of
stakeholder and persona analysis by adding granular situational (work) knowledge as a
key driver and source for needs, insights, requirements and goals for (information-)
products that can participate in work.
This situational knowledge provides an enriched base for the validation of
(information-) products with respect to user’s needs in their work answering questions,
acting and making decisions.
2.4 Producer: Affordance as a representation of possibilities
In this section we introduce and add the idea of product ‘affordance’ to the work
oriented approach. The affordance of a product or solution represents “the quality or
property of an object that defines its possible uses or makes clear how it can or should
be used” [15].
The word ‘affordance’ is fairly new. It was initially coined by the American
psychologist James J. Gibson in 1966 [16] [17]. It was later adopted and adapted by
Donald Norman in 1988, in the context of human–machine interaction [18] [19].
In this paper we use a more general version of affordance. Here affordance
represents the set of possibilities made available by something (artifact, feature,
product, solution, etcetera). An example is the artifact and product “hammer” that
offers a very large set of possibilities for use and participation in work or solution. A
hammer can be used for building houses, digging, stabilizing bookcases, etcetera.
The known and intended affordance defined by the creator of a particular type of
product is likely to different and smaller than the actual affordance. Knowledge about
actual affordance can be developed by reflection-in-action [20] through explorative and
prototyping activities, as well as through actual use.
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In most cases an (information-) product has been developed with a purpose in mind.
However, this purpose as defined by the producer may or may not be aligned with the
actual affordance, and may or may not fit with consumers actual needs.
Knowledge about affordance provides a mechanism for evaluating and also
challenging the perceptions of work-to-be-done and what the real problem or challenge
is. Maybe the affordance points to another set of needs or problem that is better solved,
or points to a particular combination of work needs and product that is more valuable
than others. An example is the development of deep learning algorithms that generate
new kinds of knowledge and challenges traditional work. In design thinking this is
called ‘(re-)framing’ [20] and is essential to design. Although, sometimes it makes
sense to be careful reframing a problem. “If you have a hammer then every problem
looks like a nail”.
The affordance of a product provides a valuable source for developing value
propositions of (information-) products. Although, a common problem is that the
corporate graveyard is full of companies that have had great ideas but customers were
not ready, willing or able to buy their products.
2.5 Change space and Fit
Between producers and consumers there is a third space, the change space. This space,
in between, represents links and relationships between work situations and products,
and contains differences, fit, and changes between the work situations and products.
Different changes or transformations have different rationale and implications. An
example from Sweden is the creation of a sustainable transport system (the solution).
The government wants to start a high speed train project, but some transport researchers
suggest to electrify the road system in support for electric vehicles [21].
From the consumer point-of-view, the work-to-be-done, derived needs and
requirements points towards a set of products in the product/solution space. How well
a particular product fits with the work-to-be-done and needs can be evaluated by
considering the product, its features and affordance, and a change that transforms the
product into the situation of work. To be considered is that produced products are not
automatically bought and used by consumers. Even if a customer has bought a product
they may not be happy with it or how it fits with their needs.
From the producers point-of-view, the product, its features and affordance points
towards a set of work situations or problems in the work space. How well a particular
work situation fits with the product can be evaluated by considering the work-to-be-
done, needs, and requirements and a change that transforms the product into the
situation of work.
Startup practices [22], design thinking [4] and design science research [3] involves
the exploration of both the problem and solution spaces in an iterative manner.
However, the final problem is typically not the same as the initial problem formulation
with requirements. This process is called framing in design thinking [20] and ends up
with a “Point-of-view” of the problem to be addressed and “How might we?”
statements[4]. Furthermore, an exploration can start with either a problem or a solution.
This means that these processes are not strictly feed-forward from problem to solution.
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An optimal overall situation can be found by analyzing all three spaces together. See
following section for information on how to evaluate Fit.
It should be noted that neither design thinking and design science research
incorporate the third change space in that same prominent way as they treat problem
and solution.
2.6 Evaluating Fit
The consumers work-to-be-done, derived needs and requirements point to possible
products, and the producers product with affordance point to possible work and needs
that fit. There are many combinations of work situations, needs, products, affordance
and change that Fit with each other, but which combination is the best or most valuable,
to whom?
The best-fit question can be represented and codified using an objective function
with a set of decision variables that contribute to a certain value that is being sought to
be optimized. The objective function is used to find an optimal best-fit (maximum or
minimum) by varying the decision variables. This codification is analogous to ” A
Fitness-Utility Model for Design Science Research” [23], which is used evaluate design
fitness and design utility.
The work oriented approach provides the following categories of decision variables:
a) Situational aspects (space 1 variables)
b) Interested parties (space 1 variables)
c) Work oriented aspect (space 1 variables)
d) Information needs, insights and requirements (space 1 variables)
e) Product and affordance (space 2 variables)
f) Change (space 3 variables)
The best-fit objective function provides one example of a model that can be used to
evaluate the use of business and enterprise models in the context of work people do
with each other’s.
For brevity, we have only schematically presented one possible representation of the
best-fit question.
3 Discussion
The productization of enterprise models creates a dynamic relation between developers
of (information-) products and the users. The developers of enterprise models and
(information-) products must be careful to supply beneficial products that fits, and users
become empowered to demand products that does the job for them.
The inclusion of affordance enrich discussions about what products can provide to
interested parties in work they do. Affordance provides an important characterization
of products that can be used to “reframe” problems and interested party’s needs.
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Furthermore, affordance provides an important decision variable in Best-Fit
objective functions where it enables and facilities the search for an optimal Fit between
needs and a product that utilizes the most of a products possibilities.
In the age of information, digital technologies and algorithms provide many
disruptive possibilities (affordance) that both producers and consumers benefit to be
aware of. In adjacent areas such as nanomaterial, robotics, analytical chemistry etcetera,
the affordance can be vital in solving modern environmental problems.
The three spaces structure provides a novel contribution to design thinking and also
design science research. These spaces will be the subject of further research and
presented in upcoming papers.
The work oriented approach together with affordance and the three spaces structure
provides the basis for the definition of a balanced evaluation model of the intentions to
use and actual use of information products.
The inclusion of situational (work) knowledge and affordance has the potential to
increase the value of (information-) products by improving relevance, intention to use
and by providing a better fit between information needs, (information-) products in
actual use.
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