IMMTM

INTEGRATED
MODELLING
METHOD
Information Flow
Modelling

John Owens

The development of
IMM™has brought A business mo del l ing method for
Business Modelling into pr ofessi on al ana l ysts and business
the 21st Century per sonnel a l i ke.

Copyright © John Owens 2009

All Rights Reserved
 Copyright © John Owens 2009

No part of this document may be reproduced, photocopied, stored

for retrieval by electronic means or made available to
(or transferred to) any third party without the express written
permission of the author

Trademarks
The term IMM™ and the IMM™ Logo are registered trademarks.

Copyright © 2009
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1 INTRO DUCTIO N
Welcome to this book on Information Flow Modelling. This is one of the
seven books that describe the core analysis and modelling techniques of
IMM™ - the Integrated Modelling Method.

This book describes all that you will need to know about modelling the flow
of information around a business and between the business and the
outside world.

The techniques will be familiar to those who have used Data Flow
Diagrams (DFD’s) in the past but there are very many essential
differences that have been introduced to remove the shortcomings of
DFD’s. These differences are detailed in Section 11.

1.1 IMM
The Integrated Modelling Method is an approach to business modelling,
that I have developed over many years, as a means of empowering
analysts and business managers alike to develop models that bring real
business benefits. The method brings together the best practices in
business systems modelling across a whole range of practical techniques.
The purpose of IMM™ is to enable elegant, accurate, integrated models
to be produced for all or part of a business quickly with accuracy and
rigour and, at the same time, avoid the shortcomings and pitfalls of
conventional modelling methods.

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3 BUIL DI NG I NFO RMA TIO N FL OW

MO DEL S
The following sections describe all of the facets of Information Flow
Models, when and how to use them and how to avoid errors.

3.1 WHEN TO USE IN FOR M AT ION FL OW

MODELS
Information Flow Models (IFM’s) are drawn when the business needs to
understand how information flows around the business or between the
business and the outside world.

When information flows around (inside) the business it flows between

Business Functions.

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When information flows to and from the outside world it flows between
Functions (that are inside the business) and what are called “External
Entities”. Examples of External Entities are ‘Government’, ‘Supplier’,
‘Customer’, etc.

An Information Flow model consists of two parts:

1) An Information Flow Diagram (IFD)

2) Definitions for each element on the IFD

3.2 ELEMENTS O F AN IFD

The following are the only valid elements that can appear on an IFD:

Business Functions These will be Business Functions from the

Function Catalogue.
External Entities These are entities external to the business, such
as Customer, Supplier, etc.
Information Flows These are the flows of information between
Business Functions inside the business or
between Business Functions and External
Entities.
Title Box A box with text and a descriptive name for the
IFD.
Focal Function Box A rectangle indicating which Function of the
diagram is the Focal Function (see Section
Error! Reference source not found.)

Focal
Function Focal Box
Customer

product order
Sell Products to product sales Analyse
Customers Product Sales
External
Entity
product availability,
price

Maintain Stock
of Products
product prices

Diagram showing the major elements of an IFD

The Information Flow “product prices” in the diagram above is incorrectly
drawn as it is between two Business Functions outside the Focal Box.

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3.3 INFORM ATIO N FLO WS

Information flows are shown on the IFD as single headed arrows going
between Functions or between Functions and External Entities. These
arrows are labelled with the information they represent.

Sell Products to product sales Analyse

Customers Product Sales

Example of an Information Flow between two Functions

Unlabelled arrows are meaningless and should never appear on an
Information Flow diagram.

The Functions that appear on Information Flow diagrams are taken from
the bottom level of the Function Catalogue as it stands at the present
time. Ideally these should be Elementary Functions.

For more information on Function Modelling, Functions and Elementary

Business Functions (EBF’s) read my book IMM™ Function Modelling
available from www.integratedmodelling.co.nz

3.4 TWO WAY IN FO RM ATION FLO W

Double headed arrows should NOT be used to show two way Information
Flow as it is not possible to clearly show in which direction each piece of
information flows.
planned
Plan Project activities Monitor Project
Activities Progress
variations
from plan

Double headed arrows should NOT be used

Does “planned activities” in the diagram above flow from left to right or
vice versa?

When information flows in two directions between Functions this must be

shown by two arrows going in opposite directions as shown below:
planned
Plan Project activities Monitor Project
Activities Progress
variations
from plan

Two way information flow shown correctly using two arrows

Another reason why a double headed arrow cannot be used is that the
content of each information flow needs to be separately defined (see
Section 4) and this would not be possible using a single, double headed
arrow.

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3.6 MODEL IN FOR MATION NO T P APER

A common mistake made by analysts is to map the flow of paper around
the business as opposed to the flow of information.

products
Dispatch dispatched Bill the
Products to Customer
Customers

Diagram correctly showing the flow of information between Functions

The above diagram is correct as it shows the flow of the information that is
needed in order to carry out the Function “Bill the Customer”.

dispatch
Dispatch notes Bill the
Products to Customer
Customers

Diagram wrongly showing the flow of paper as opposed to the flow of information

The above diagram is wrong as it shows the flow of paper – “dispatch

notes” - and not of the information needed by the Function “Bill the
Customer”. The main reason this is wrong is that paper reports can carry
several (often many) different pieces of information and just showing the
name of the piece of paper or report does not show us what information is
actually needed by the receiving Function.

Some analysts compound the problem of paper flow further as shown

below.
dispatch
Warehouse notes Accounts

Diagram showing the flow of paper between departments

The above diagram is NOT an Information Flow Diagram.

Not only is it incorrect because it shows the flow of paper as opposed to

the flow of information but the boxes represent Departments in the
business as opposed to Business Functions – remember a department
is not a Function!! (another mistake made by analysts and business
people alike).

Sometimes it is desirable to show the flow of paper around the business in

order to demonstrate a specific point, for example, the proliferation of
paper. The proper technique for doing this is described in Section 8.

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3.8 CREATE/ TR AN SFORM RUL E (1)

A basic definition of a Function is that it must either create or transform
information. This is an essential rule to know when building and quality
checking IFDs.

Function A Function B Function C

a a

The same information should not flow into and out of a Function
Because of the Create/Transform Rule the same information cannot flow
into and out of a Function.

In the diagram above information flow ‘a’ goes into Function B and out the
other side. This is an error. Information cannot flow through a Function
without being transformed – or it is not a Function.

If both Function B and Function C require the information ‘a’ then the
diagram should be drawn as below:

Function B Function A Function C

a a

Information should be shown going directly from source to where it is required

Here the Information Flow ‘a’ is shown coming from Function A, which is
source. An Information Flow should always be shown emerging from the
Function that creates it. It can never pass through another Function
unchanged.

This is one of the basic quality checks that ought to be made on all
Information Flow Diagrams.

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4 DE FI NI NG I NFO RMA TIO N FL OWS

The definition for an information flow should contain all of the following
elements.

Element Description
Name This is mandatory. Every information flow must have a
name or it is a meaningless arrow. The name should
consist of a short phrase that describes the essence of
the information flow without defining its contents e.g.
‘monthly sales figures’. The label is always written in
lowercase and placed next to the arrow representing the
information flow on the IFD.

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Element Description
Description This expands on the name. Suppose the label was
‘monthly sales figures’, the description for this might be:
“Monetary value of the sales of all products for the
preceding calendar month”. This Description would not
appear on the IFD but would appear in supporting
documentation or in a CASE Tool.
Data This describes the elements of data that make up the
Elements information flow.
Attributes of entities are prefixed with the entity name for
example:
PRODUCT.Code
PRODUCT.Name
Derived elements are prefixed with ‘Derived’, for
example:
DERIVED.Total Product Value
Each derived element may need to have a description to
unambiguously describe what it is, for example:
“The total of all sales values for a product in the
preceding calendar month”.
The listing of the data elements would not appear on the
IFD but would appear in supporting documentation or in
a CASE Tool.

For more information on Entities and Attributes read my book IMM™ Data
Structure Modelling available from www.integratedmodelling.co.nz

5 INFO RMA TIO N FL OW MODELLI NG

WO RKSHO P S
IIFDs are built during Information Flow modelling workshops.

The interviewees at these workshops should be one or two (no more) key
people from the business who know the information needs of the
Functions being modelled.

The starting point for modelling Information Flows is the Function

Catalogue. Information Flows are modelled for Functions at the bottom
level of the Function Catalogue. Ideally these should be Elementary
Business Functions (EBF's). If they are not, the Information Flow
modelling workshop is a good point to break them down to that level.

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For full descriptions of the Function Catalogue and EBF's read my book
IMM™ Function Modelling available from www.integratedmodelling.co.nz

Example of a small part of a Function Catalogue

Prior to the workshop the interviewees should be sent a diagram of that
part of the Function Catalogue holding the Functions for which the
Information Flows need to be modelled. This will show where the
Functions fit into the overall business. This diagram will act as the starting
point for the modelling workshop. The Function Catalogue should be
displayed on a wall of the room in which the workshop is being held.

The first Function for which the Information Flows are to be mapped
should be drawn in the middle of a whiteboard – this is the Focal Function.
A larger square (not too large) should be drawn around the focal Function
– this is the focal box (see Section Error! Reference source not found.
for rules on the focal box).

The interviewees should then be asked the following question:

“You are the business expert(s) carrying out this Function. What
information do you need in order to do so and where does this
information come from?”

The ‘where’ must be expressed either as another Function or as an

External Entity.

If the interviewees do not know which Function creates the information

and can only give an answer such as “we get it from the Accounts
Department” the analyst must think of a suitable Function that would
create the information in question.

For example, If the required information was “product sales for the month”,
then a likely Function to create this would be “Sell Products”. This
Function should be added to the Information Flow Diagram with an arrow
labelled “product sales for the month” coming from it and going to the
Focal Function.

The text “To be Verified as Source” should be written alongside this

Function to remind the analysts that the source needs to be verified.

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The Function Catalogue needs to be checked to see if the Function “Sell

Products” already exists on it. If not it will need to be added. In this way
the Function Catalogue is dynamically updated as part of information flow
modelling activities.

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6 VERI FYI NG I NFO RMA TI O N FLO W A T

THE RECEIVI NG FUNCTI ON
Information ought never to be thought of as being ‘pushed’ from one
Function to the next. The Function that needs the information should be
thought of as ‘pulling’ it from the Functions that create it, as and when it is
needed.

For this reason it is essential always to check with those people in the
business that carry out the Function receiving information that they really
do require the information that is being sent to them.

When asked “do you need this information?” they will very often answer
“No, we are sent it all the time but we never use it”.

In this case the information flow should be removed from the diagram.

Another response that is common is “Oh Yes! They send us that report
every month but we never use it. We get the information we need from
another report.”

This response seems to suggest that the receiving Function does not
require the information in question, but all that is really telling us is that the
report in question is not used as the source of the information, but that a
different report is used. But as we learned in Section 3.6, we must model
the flow of information and not the flow of paper. So the information
MUST be shown coming from the Function that created it. (see also the
Single Source Rule below).

This is another example where the business thinks about (and describes)
the flow of documents (in this case reports) as opposed to the flow of
information. It is important for analysts not to fall into the same trap.

7 THE SI NGLE SO URCE RU LE

One of the fundamental rules for Information Flow modelling is the Single
Source Rule for information, which is:

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The Single Source Rule

Any discrete, unique piece of information can only ever have one
Function as its source. The information that a Function creates
helps to uniquely identify the Function itself, therefore, if two
Functions create the same piece of information then they are in fact
the same Function – not two!

This is a very powerful rule for validating Information Flow Diagrams,

because it tells us that if the same item of information seems to be flowing
from two different sources then there is an error.

In such circumstances either the items of information are in essence

different (they have been wrongly give the same name) or the Functions
from which they come are the same (but have wrongly been given names
that make them seem different).

?
sales by product production
Sell Products to Plan Production Produce
by month plan
Customers Products

Analyse ?
Product Sales
sales by product
by month

Diagram showing same information flow coming from two different sources
In the above diagram the information flow ‘sales by product by month’ is
shown coming from two different sources. Because we know the Single
Source Rule we know that there is a mistake here.

If we look at the contents of both information flows and we will see that
they are different.

<Break in Extract>

sales by product production

Analyse Plan Production Produce
by month plan
Product Sales Products

Amended diagram with duplicate information flow removed

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8 MO DELLI NG FLO W OF P A PE R
If the business needs to model the flow of documents (such as reports)
around the business this can easily be achieved by adding the documents
to Information Flow Diagrams.

.
Monitor Stores
Performance

Monthly
sales by store for
Customer Sales
previous month
Report
sales for
Sell Products previous six Monitor Sales
product order month
Trends
Customer Monthly
Order Sales
Form Monthly Report
Sales sales by rep for
Report previous month

Monitor Sales
Reps
Performance

Diagram showing flow of documents added to information flows

(The focal box has been omitted for clarity)
The diagram above demonstrates how to show the flow of paper between
Functions. A block arrow is placed next to the information flow between
the Functions and the name of the document or report that contains the
information is written inside the block arrow.

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10 INFO RMA TIO N FL OW VS PRO CE SS

One of the major errors made by analysts is to use Information Flow
Diagrams in place of Process Diagrams. They incorrectly assume that the
flow of information between Functions equates to the flow of control in a
process model.

This is a major error and should be avoided at all costs. The following
subsections explain the problem and the solution.

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11 IFD'S VE RSUS DFD’S

In IMM™ Information Flow Diagrams (IFD's) are used to represent the flow
of information around a business and between the business and the
outside world.

Some analysts may have previously used Data Flow Diagrams (DFD’s)
and, noting the similarities with IFD's think that they are both the same
thing. They are not! IFD's, although similar to DFD’s have several
essential differences that make them more robust and less prone to error.

Below is a list of the facets of DFD’s that are not used in Information Flow
Modelling in IMM™, together with the reasons why these elements are
unsafe to use in Business Modelling.

Data Store These are symbols that can be placed on

DFD’s to represent places where data is
stored, either in the current business
environment or in a future planned computer
system.

This is an unsafe practice as it breaks one of

the fundamental rules of business analysis that
says that all business analysis and modelling
should be done independently of current or
future ‘systems’ or design thinking.

Logical and In methods that employed DFD’s as their main

modelling technique (such as SSADM) there
Physical were many different ‘views’ of the world that a
Perspecti ves DFD could represent. These included:

Current This meant a view of how the

Physical business is currently carried out but
sadly included a ‘warts and all’
approach that entailed modelling
even the most incorrect practices of
the business in full detail!! A
practice that takes considerable
time and is of no value.

Current The term ‘logical’ was meant to be

Logical the opposite of ‘physical’. This
‘view’ is close to how business
modelling should be done but was
flawed because it was based on the
‘current physical’ view with its ‘warts
and all’.

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Future This ‘view’ is closest to how

Logical business modelling should be done
but is flawed because it tried to
‘imagine’ HOW the business would
operate in the future and so
modelled mechanisms as opposed
to Business Functions.

Future This is not really a business

Physical modelling technique at all but really
a ‘design’ approach to model future
‘procedures’.

Diagram Those methods that use DFD’s also tend to

use decomposition (breaking down into more
Decomposition detail) of these diagrams. This is a practice
to be avoided at all costs, as it is extremely
cumbersome, prone to error, adds no value
and results in 3 to 5 times more diagrams being
drawn than are necessary. In IMM™ all
decomposition is done using the Function
Catalogue, where it is easy to do and where it
adds value.

Flow L evelli ng This is a cumbersome practice resulting from

decomposing DFD’s in which the data flows
have themselves to be broken down into more
and more detail. It is another practice to be
avoided at all costs and is not necessary in
IMM™.

In IMM™ the primary modelling technique is Function Modelling. This is

used to build the Function Catalogue and all other models are built using
the Functions from the bottom level of the catalogue.

Information Flow Modelling is a secondary modelling technique in IMM™

and is only used when it is necessary to understand and model how
information flows around the business.

I strongly recommend that you are fully familiar with all of the facets of
Function Modelling before you get involved with any of the secondary
modelling methods. If you do you will find that your models will be far
more rigorous and yet less complicated. Your productivity will also be
much higher as you will be able to get it right first time, every time.

For my book on Function Modelling go to

www.integratedmodelling.co.nz

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12 GLO SSA RY
This glossary is arranged alphabetically and contains definitions, not just
for Information Flow Modelling, but for all of the elements of IMM™ and
business modelling in general. Where a definition contains a term that is
defined elsewhere in the glossary that term appears in bold italic.

Term Description
<Break in Extract>
Elementary An Elementary Business Function is any
Business Business Function which once begun must be
Function completed or if not completed must be undone.
If there is a valid intermediate stage for the
Function then it is not elementary.
An elementary Function may take the business
from one state to another or may leave the state
unchanged.
At the end of detailed analysis all bottom level
Functions on the Function Catalogue ought to be
elementary Functions.
Entity A diagram showing the relationships between
Relationship Data Entities, normally referred to as an ERD.
Diagram
<Break in Extract>

Feedback A session run towards the end of the analysis

Session and modelling stage of a project in which the
models and findings of the project are fed back
to the business to confirm that they are correct,
to rectify any faults, resolve disagreements and
gain sign off and commitment.
Focal Function A Function, usually an elementary Function,
drawn at the centre of an Information Flow
Diagram. All Data Flows are shown going to or
from this Function.
IFD Acronym for Information Flow Diagram.
IMM™ Integrated Modelling Method. The symbol ™
indicates that this is a registered trade mark.
Information Data on its own has little meaning. For example,
K3P3 is a datum, but what is it? Is it a cipher in
a secret code, a foreign car registration or
instructions in a knitting pattern (Knit 3, Purl 3)?
Data in a context is Information

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Term Description
Information A diagram used in Information Flow Modelling
Flow Diagram to represent how information flows from one
Function to another or from a Function to
External Entity outside the business. In IMM™
all information flows are drawn between Atomic
Functions or between Elementary Functions.
Information The act of analysing and modelling how
Flow Modelling information flows around a business and
between the business and the outside world.
Information The stage of a business analysis or systems
Gather Stage development project where interviews and
workshops are held with appropriate members of
the business in order to gather the necessary
information to enable the business to be
modelled.
<Break in Extract>

Unique The elements that make each Occurrence of a

Identifier Data Entity unique from a business and human
perspective. These elements may be one or
more Attributes, one or more Relationships or
a combination of attributes and relationships.
User A person who uses a computer system. This is
perhaps one of the most abused terms in
business modelling, being commonly used to
refer to any member of the business who is not
part of the analysis team. A user or ‘one of
them’ as opposed to ‘one of us’. Good analysts
avoid this term completely when referring to
members of the business and use terms that are
more accurate and concise in that they refer to
specific groups of people, for example,
department managers, process managers, shift
leaders, senior managers, board members, etc.
Workflow This is the process of scheduling, managing and
monitoring the business procedure of a company
to ensure that it happens in accordance with
SLA’s, policy, objectives or any other relevant
business values.

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