Presumably, buildings 1 and 3 were major contenders. Likewise, conceptual
service association activities are driven by methods of comparing attributes. To perfect this process,
however, business contexts should also be thrown into the mix when applying association
practices on conceptual services.
The concept association method offers four major mechanisms to relate conceptual services.
These practices will later facilitate the construction of fundamental service structures in
the service analysis, design, and architecture phases (discussed in Chapters 6 through 16). Each
practice is explained in the sections that follow.
CONCEPT HIERARCHIES METHOD. The most common method of associating concepts is to
employ concept hierarchies similar to the structure presented in Exhibit 5.9. This approach advocates
arranging ideas in hierarchical structures based on how general the concepts are. Explicitly
generic concepts typically occupy the top levels, and descending levels accommodate more specific
ideas in the hierarchy. What is the main benefit for employing hierarchies and levels to
associate conceptual services? The answer to this question is related to how service granularity is
perceived this early in the service life cycle. Naturally, coarse-grained services that are expected
to implement a large amount of business functionalities are regarded as generic entities, and
fine-grained services usually offer limited business implementations.
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