BRIEF BIO

James J. Odell is a consultant, writer, and educator in the areas of agent-oriented and object-oriented systems, methodology, business process management (BPM), data and meta-data modeling, applied ontology, metadata-driven service oriented architecture (SOA), event-driven development (EDA/CEP), and complex adaptive systems (CAS). Throughout most of his forty year career, Mr. Odell has been heavily involved in developing better methods to understand, communicate, and manage system requirements. He was one of the early innovators of information engineering methodologies. Formerly, he was the principal consultant for KnowledgeWare, Inc. where he pioneered and taught the concepts of data modeling, information strategy planning, and CASE technology application. He then became one of the first practical implementors of object-oriented analysis and design. Working with the OMG and other major methodologists, he continues to innovate and improve development methods and techniques. In particular, he has been the co-chair of the OMG’s Analysis and Design Task Force for 12 years and has participated in the development of standards such as UML and UML 2.0, SoaML, SysML, and others.  (The activity diagram—originally called the Event Diagram—was his primary contributions to UML.) Most recently, Mr. Odell is involved in a mixture of ontology, metadata & metadata repositories, complex-event process (CEP), agent-based and complex systems—and their application to business systems (including an agent-based UML called AUML). In particular, he has participated in designing and building multiagent systems (MAS) that enable their customers to dynamically manage multiple resources in changing and unpredictable environments. These systems serve several application areas, such as managing resources for manufacturing, call centers, green environments, and global sensor allocation and configuration.  He is the chair of IEEE FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) and the co-chair of the OMG's Agents Special Interest Group. He is currently participating in an agent-standardization and event-standardization efforts at the OMG (with IBM, HP, Unisys, and others). He has co-authored books with James Martin entitled Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (1992), Object-Oriented Methods: Pragmatic Considerations (1996), and Object-Oriented Methods: A Foundation, UML Edition (1998) published by Prentice-Hall. Additionally, he has co-edited five books on the topic of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) with Springer-Verlag. He conducts seminars and workshops—both on-site and public—and provides consulting to major companies worldwide. His clients represent many business sectors and include major companies, such as Netscape, Amazon.com, CSC, DHL, Oracle, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, TIBCO, Novartis, DuPont, Lowe's, Standard Oil, British Petroleum, Aramco, National Health Service (UK), British Telecom, Cincinnati Bell, SBC, GTE, AirTouch, DTE Energy, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, American Express, Fireman's Fund, Prudential, Travelers, Nordstrom, Levi Strauss, Lockheed, NASA, Deere & Co., Ford, Chrysler, GM, Philips Electronics, Capgemini, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Deloitte & Touche, and Kabira—spanning 17 countries.

Send comments to James Odell <Contact> Last update: 1 November 2011