To build software systems that meet business objectives, IT and business professionals must work together closely to define specifications and build models that accurately describe those objectives. This book gives them the shared language they need to accomplish this. Haim Kilov illuminates every key concept underlying today's most important approaches to specifications and modeling, giving business professionals practical insight for decision-making, and giving IT specialists the tools they need to evaluate IT artifacts in the context of business goals. Drawing on his extraordinarily rich real-world experience in modeling systems for finance, telecommunications, document management, and other industries, Haim Kilov describes every factor that impacts business models, systems and specifications. He presents today's most effective modeling techniques in the context of international standards that are independent of any technology, methodology or tool, and will work in any enterprise environment. Along the way, he presents many examples, and shows how key modeling concepts can be used within the framework of today's most popular tools, notably UML.