The OLE method: From Flowchart to Blockchain

One of our marketing slogans is that we can train participants in our training courses to become ‘ next-generation software developers ‘. The purpose of this blog is to briefly explain why and how we do this.

Process should be leading, not IT.

First the why. Today, IT has become an integral part of our daily lives: more and more digitization is taking place and our dependence on IT is greater than we are sometimes aware of. This of course offers many advantages, but it also brings with it some challenges. Two major challenges that almost all organizations face are the gap between end-user and IT supplier and integration issues.

Users have to adapt to the IT as it has been delivered, and which cannot be adapted to the wishes of the user, or only by making large investments. An IT package is often not fully opaque and multiple packages or Excel are used. These different IT solutions cannot easily communicate with each other, which means that information is stored in different places. In short, the IT does not work as desired and this results in unnecessary, inefficient and error-prone work.

We believe that organizations that want to be future-proof must be able to continuously monitor and improve their business processes. This requires supporting IT that exactly matches the desired execution of those business processes. Not only does this provide a uniform working method in which users can be guided through their process, but it also provides real-time insight into all important performance indicators. To achieve this, the desired business processes must be central, and not IT.

From Process Model to IT Solution

And now the how. Just as with building physical infrastructure, when building digital infrastructure, the current and desired situation must first be thoroughly mapped out. In our training courses we treat this as a general business analysis and an in-depth business analysis. Based on these analyses, the current process can be described in a process model.

For this we use the fully graphical modeling language GOLE . GOLE goes way beyond other modeling languages (such as BPMN) in that it specifies how to handle data flowing through a process. This data is modeled as objects that occupy a place in a so-called data form. This data form is the entity that flows through the process and is continuously updated per process step, ultimately leading to a fully completed form with all the desired result data that the process was supposed to deliver. You can also describe the business logic in GOLE that tells you how you process input data into output data for each process step. For more details on this, refer to a data modeling and business logic blog.

Next comes the challenging task of transforming the current situation into the desired one, eliminating the inefficiencies and complexity as much as possible. This is based on the idea that the process model can be directly and error-free translated into fully working workflow software, and that private blockchain technology can be used. Based on the improved process model, workflow software can then be automatically generated by means of the OLE compiler.

After years of research, Dr. Herman Balsters, inspired by leading mathematicians and philosophers such as Saul Kripke, devised a formal mathematical language underlying GOLE. That language is called OLE (Objects, Logic, and English), and it is the OLE language that has provided the basis for both the combination of process + data + business logic to correctly and completely describe business processes, as well as the basis for the arrangement of the compiler that eventually automatically translates GOLE process models into working software.

Users of GOLE (Graphic OLE) will probably never see OLE. But it’s good to know that there is a solid mathematical foundation under GOLE, which guarantees that the GOLE is not only very precise, but also translates provably correctly into working software code (blockchain code in the case of NorthChain ).

Through a combination of the business analysis, the GOLE process models with data and business logic and the OLE compiler, we can indeed offer a method to create workflow software without programming. Participants in our training courses can be trained to become the ‘ next-generation software developers ‘ within a few days.