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"Das Bild besteht darin, dass sich seine Elemente in bestimmter Art und Weise zu einander verhalten"
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus 2.14
An enterprise consists of assets and their relationships. Assets may be anything which is of importance to the enterprise, but we can identify four principal types:
Briefly, processes are the activities which the organization carries out, information assets are created and transformed by processes, and systems are the tools which support the processes. Organizational assets are slightly different since these are the instigators of activities and stand in a special relationship to the others.
Each type of asset has its own characteristics and is represented and described differently.
Processes are normally described by a series of steps which involve actions by members of the organization and in which information assets are created or transformed using systems. Typically these are represented in the form of process diagrams. There is usually a hierarchy of processes and a set of criteria for how these are started. Very often there are measures associated with processes such as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Information assets usually represent some object of interest to the business. This may be a date, a sum of cash, a customer and so on. Information assets are often conveniently represented in a data dictionary or a glossary of business terms.
Systems are the methods used by processes to create and transform data. These are typically defined by specifications.
Finally there are organizational entities. These can range from the entire enterprise to individuals within it. For current purposes, the two key concepts are 'role' and 'person'. The combination of role and person gives us the notion of an agent, a person who can initiate and carry out a process using systems and producing or modifying data. Importantly, only organizational asset can own other assets.
The the relationship between these is shown in the following diagram:
