Purpose
Abstraction is the fundamentals to innovation. It is a hierarchical process that perfectly fits the needs of the stakeholder facing complex problems requiring the business solutions.
Abstraction involves induction of ideas or the synthesis of particular facts into one general concept. It is the opposite of specification, which s the analysis or breaking down of general idea. Abstraction can be illustrated with Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum in 1620, which is a book of modern scientific philosophy written in the late Jacobean era of England to encourage modern thinkers to collect specific facts before making any business decisions. It is a conceptual process where general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples. Abstraction acts as a common idea for all the sub ordinate concepts, and connects any related concepts as a group, field, or category. It deals with stating a general concepts and then decomposing that concept into more specific details.
The abstraction is used by the business analyst in software requirements analysis providing the stakeholders with relevant information about the business in a technology free way. The concept of abstraction doesn’t contain any technology itself. The abstracting nature of the business analysts perspective makes software requirements analysis a self contained discipline. In other words, analysis of software requirements means describing the product in terms of data, functions, and interfaces. There are three types of abstraction. They are,
- Generalization - It is obtained by inference from specific cases of the concept. It is an extension of the concept to less specific criteria. Verification can be done to determine whether the generalization holds for the given situation.
- Removal of Properties - Abstraction is also been described as suppression of irrelevant detail, that are not important in conveying the specific concepts to the specific audience.
- Distancing of Ideas - We can use abstraction to separate the ideas themselves from the objects that reify them.
Some of the articles related to Abstraction techniques are as follows,
- Abstraction in Business Analysis - https://www.sparxsystems.com/downloads/whitepapers/SOABusinessAnalysis.pdf
- Abstraction: Business Architecture - https://www.bptrends.com/abstraction-in-business-architecture/
- Introduction to Abstraction - https://www.tutorialspoint.com/business_analysis/business_analysis_introduction.htm
- Business Process with Abstraction - http://publicationslist.org/data/a.april/ref-488/colcom2015final.pdf
- Levels of Abstraction - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220636854_The_Method_of_Levels_of_Abstraction
- Abstraction - https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/13629/10/10_abstract.pdf
- Modelling with Abstraction - http://publicationslist.org/data/a.april/ref-488/colcom2015final.pd
- Abstraction Technique - https://pmibaltimore.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=469:pde-207-abstract-this-business-of-business-analysis&catid=31&Itemid=125
- Fundamentals of Abstraction - http://www.smart-ba.com/articles/fundamentals_of_business_analysis.pdf
- Guideline for Abstraction - https://www.uni-potsdam.de/fileadmin/projects/professional-services/downloads/skripte-ss/Anleitung_Case_Studies.pdf
Abstraction concept is classified into three ways such as,
- Conceptual - Conceptual models focus on the key concepts and relationship of the whole solution, not on how the system works. They are generally the static models, where connectors shows the relationships not the flows.
- Logical - Logical models describe how the solution works, in terms of functions and logical relationships between the resources, outcomes, and activities.
- Physical - Physical models refer to specific products, data representation, requirements, and other information related to deploy the system.
Some of the books for Abstraction techniques are,
- Abstraction: Business Concepts | Ronald G. Ross | https://www.amazon.com/Anstraction-Business-Concepts-Ronald-Ross/dp/0981049140/ref=sr_1_35?dchild=1&keywords=abstraction+business+analysis+books&qid=1593295416&sr=8-35
