User enhanceability for fast response to changing office needs

Key factors for developing user enhanceable office systems are: (i) an appropriate office model as a basis for office application systems; (ii) easily comprehensible visual formalisms to overcome the need for conventional programming. This paper proposes a method for user enhanceability that uses a distributed agent-based office model and a novel multi-paradigm visual programming language. To support dynamic organizations, the office model focusses on the organizational knowledge necessary to facilitate operative changes such as workload re-distributing and dynamic work-flow management. The visual language is designed to explicitly represent this organizational knowledge during all stages of the development.<>