Business Model
The Business Viewpoint of the AIoT Product Architecture is a refinement of the different artifacts created in the Business Model. Given that AIoT solutions heavily depend on physical products / assets deployed in the field, it is highly recommended to perform research in real-world deployment scenarios, e.g. in the form of site-visits where current / similar product versions are used.
Site Survey
In many traditional Internet or enterprise IT projects, it does not matter where the software is used, especially if the main point of access is a browser. With AIoT, this differs greatly, since the physical products / assets can potentially behave differently, depending on the type of environment they are deployed in. Also, usage pattern might vastly differ, depending on the environment. Consequently, it is highly recommended for the team responsible for the product design to spend time on-site and investigate different usage scenarios in different environments.
Capability Map
A powerful tool for transitioning from a high-level product vision towards a more actionable product definition are capability maps. A capability defines what a product needs support in order to meet customer expectations and anticipated use cases. Capabilities are the key building blocks of the product design, unique and independent from each other. Product capabilities tend to be stable over time - as opposed to more detailed requirements.
The AIoT Capability Map provides a visual map, outlining the key physical and digital capabilities of the product, as well as the required support capabilities.
Personas
Personas are archetypical users of the product. Often, personas represent fictitious people which are based on your knowledge of real users. The Business Viewpoint should define a comprehensive set of personas which help with modeling the product features in way that takes the perspective of different product users into consideration. By personifying personas, the product team will ideally even develop an emotional bond to key personas, since they will accompany them through an intense development process. A persona does not necessarily need a sophisticated fictitious background story, but at least it should have a real-world first name and individual icon, as shown in the example below.
