From chess to model-driven development, a small step

Originally, if you had an application built as an organization, you would soon be highly dependent on your implementation partner. In this blog our colleague Maarten Veger tells us that nowadays it does not have to be that way. After all, independent model-driven development has become a reality.

Hidden business logic

Many applications are developed by programming everything yourself. This takes more time, and the business logic is hidden in the programming code. The design of the application lies with one role, the actual development of it done by a construction team. This development process not only requires specialist knowledge of the programming language, it is also a process that is difficult to provide insight into. It may therefore resemble the famous whispering game: what goes in is often something completely different than what comes out and on the way there, there is little chance to make adjustments. As a customer you will find yourself in an undesirable situation; too much of the responsibility is placed with the – often external – specialists, causing you to lose control..

Business processes as a chess board

It’s actually strange that, being the owner of that logic, you let something like that happen. After all, if you want to have a house built, you want it to be done according to your taste, from the letterbox all the way to the attic window. After all, you are the one paying for it right? That’s also what Alan Trefler, CEO of Pegasystems, thought. As a young chess master, he already compared business processes with playing chess. His ability to think logically and to break down complex interactions into understandable, sequential steps has made Pegasystems what it is today and gives us the opportunity to develop model driven.

Click your application together

In model-driven development, you click the application together, via a visual studio. Just as tools like WordPress and Drupal allow you to “click” websites together, Pega offers you the opportunity to develop applications and processes in a similar way. Because of this, it is also easy for non-technicians to understand what is happening and perhaps even to get started themselves. Such tools make work easier and shield the complexity from the “engine” – where the model is converted to hard-to-read programming code and HTML. The two main tools that Pega offers for this are App Studio and the Dev Studio.

App Studio & Dev Studio

App Studio is really intended for a novice Pega developer, but also for the so-called citizen developer: a business user who also develops applications or processes. It makes it possible to quickly create a click-through application and iteratively expand it into a business application. You might almost say that you are clicking the screens together while talking, and that that allows you to show what you are building. This makes it a lot easier for a person involved in the business to give feedback than when working with the black box full of programming code that only few people understand. For the slightly more experienced Pega developer, there is Dev Studio. The great thing is that both systems integrate seamlessly. For example, a novice user of App Studio can easily collaborate with an experienced user of Dev Studio. Suppose you set up a connection in Dev Studio to retrieve customer data, you can then drag it into App Studio so that a less experienced user can continue with it.

Regain control

Because of this, a customer does not only get a grip on the development process, they can also manage it better and even (further) develop applications in-house. Of course, you can still temporarily hire extra manpower to do very specialist work or simply because you need extra hands and brainpower. But by ensuring good balance and control, you can be sure to get what you want. From the letterbox to the attic window.

Want to know more?
Our BPM Company Academy offers both online and classroom training. You can also participate in our free Masterclass Business Process Management. You can read more information here. Are you curious about what we can do for your company? Feel free to contact us at [email protected] or call 030 – 20 77 006.