The True Value of the Unified Modeling Language ( UML )

oday’s businesses compete vigorously in a global market filled with opportunities and risks. They are bombarded with ongoing business and technological change as well as ever-increasing complexity that is partially due to their evolutionary response to change. Businesses are charted to solve complex and ever-changing problems for themselves and their clients by applying their knowledge within this environment. The problem-solving process involves understanding a problem and evolving a solution from it through the application of knowledge. Therefore, the knowledge that a business is able to capture, communicate, and leverage to solve problems becomes the dictating factor of its success or failure. While business focus on solving problems and realizing their visions by applying business and technological knowledge, they often overlook the value of the artifacts generated by these problem-solving processes. It is these artifacts that best capture an organization’s lessons learned, best practices, and knowledge. If such knowledge is captured and reapplied, the organization can become even more competitive and proactive, rather than reactive, to change and complexity, thus increasing its probability of success.