63 | 65 | Two-level modelling significantly changes the dynamics of the systems development process. In the usual IT-intensive process, requirements are gathered via ad hoc discussions with users (typically via the well-known "use case" methodology), designs and models built from the requirements, implementation proceeds from the design, followed by testing and deployment and ultimately the maintenance part of the lifecycle. This is usually characterised by ongoing high costs of implementation change and/or a widening gap between system capabilities and the requirements at any moment. The approach also suffers from the fact that ad hoc conversations with systems users nearly always fails to reveal underlying content and workflow. Under the two-level paradigm, the core part of the system is based on the reference and archetype models (includes generic logic for storage, querying, caching etc.), both of which are extremely stable, while domain semantics are mostly delegated to domain specialists who work building archetypes (reusable), templates (local use) and terminology (general use). The process is illustrated in FIGURE 6. Within this process, IT developers concentrate on generic components such as data management and interoperability, while groups of domain experts work outside the software development process, generating definitions that are used by systems at runtime. |