IMF and FOM

Advantages of Fact Oriented Modeling

The use of Fact Oriented Modeling yields a great number of advantages.

The first advantage is that we know what we are structuring rather than guessing that (see the figures under Impressions). Because of this we can start the realisation phase based on guaranteed correct data structures instead of structures guessed wrong, as still happens all too often in praktice with all its horrible financial consequences in many companies and governmental organisations.

The second one I picked up from the application builders with whom I collaborated. They told me, that the models created by us were equally understandable for them and the end-consumers: the sentences and examples made it easy to communicate about the functionality to deliver, and stimulate the imagination in the right way. Metadata were made effortlessly available with the attributes in ETL and the Front-end, and the models were meeting all reporting needs. These aspect were all in sharp contrast with their experience in traditional design projects, where their work had to be done over and over again to get things right.

A third advantage, also the last I mention here, touches the issue of information quality. Precise semantics means the correct verbalization of coherent data in terms of complete facts. This correct verbalization is more important than the sheer drawing up of data (field) definitions. Why? Because in the maintenance of data the definitions of data elements draw the attention to the validity of data fields (e.g. does the date-of-birth field contain a real date), while the precise verbalization of coherent data draws the attention to the correctness of the data (e.g. does the date-of-birth field really contain the right date-of-birth). That is: definitions draw the focus to the question: "are the fields correct?" and precise verbalizations draw the focus to "are the facts correct?". The latter is from the angle of information quality what really matters.
A full explanation of Fact Oriented Modeling and its use in projects is given in our courses.

< FOM details