Tutorial
Advancing Agility and Shared Understanding in Digital Ecosystem Design using Digital Twins: The Scene2Model Approach
The increasing complexity of digital ecosystems continues to challenge the development and extension of information systems. Managing change across multidisciplinary teams and enabling innovation at scale requires approaches that foster both agility and shared understanding. Design thinking plays a crucial role in this context, supporting agile ideation, prototyping, and testing through collaborative exploration.
However, traditional design thinking approaches are often constrained by synchronous collaboration, reliance on physical artifacts, and limited scalability. This tutorial introduces the Scene2Model approach developed within OMiLAB, which enables the transformation of design thinking artifacts into digital twins. These digital representations can be shared, refined, and semantically enriched across distributed environments, supporting reuse and integration with business assets.
By combining conceptual modeling with design thinking, Scene2Model bridges informal design artifacts and formal abstractions used in information systems development. The approach enhances co-creation, supports shared understanding, and facilitates the transition from early ideation to structured system design.
Organizers
About the organizer: Dr. Wilfrid Utz received his PhD from the University of Vienna, Research Group Knowledge Engineering in the field of metamodel design and conceptual structures. He has been involved in international research and innovation projects and gained experience in the field of modeling method conceptualization, meta-model design, and implementation of modeling tools using ADOxx in various application domains. His research and professional interest relate to the knowledge representation using meta-modeling concepts and platforms.
About the organizer: Iulia Vaidian received her master’s degree at the Vienna University of Economics and Business in Supply Chain Management and gained experience in design thinking, business process management, and conceptual modelling concepts and technologies in her responsibilities as part of the Research Group Knowledge Engineering from the University of Vienna and the OMiLAB team. She is responsible for the organization of the NEMO Summer School Series, has been involved in various EU funded projects, and coordinates the OMiLAB Community of Practice.
About the organizer: Alexander Völz received his master’s degree at the University of Vienna in Business Administration. Subsequently, he gained experience in applying and teaching conceptual modeling, metamodeling, and design thinking in his position as Research and Teaching Assistant at the Research Group Knowledge Engineering. His primary research interests focus on applied knowledge engineering and management in the context of intelligent systems. These skills are actively applied to in his current role as a research staff member of OMiLAB to contribute to various research projects.
Goal and specific area of interest
The tutorial introduces participants to storyboarding as a design thinking method. Participants collaboratively create visual scenes using haptic materials, which are then transformed into digital twins using the Scene2Model tool. These models are enriched semantically and analyzed across business, organizational, legal, and technological perspectives.
The approach enables reuse, structured representation, and integration of design artifacts into digital ecosystem contexts, supporting co-creation and innovation.
Tutorial format
The tutorial is a 90-minute session combining theory and practice:
A. Theoretical Foundations (15 min): Introduction to design thinking and its role in digital innovation environments.
B. Practical Session (75 min): Participants work in groups to create design artifacts and transform them into digital twins using Scene2Model. Advanced features such as semantic enrichment and LLM-based support are demonstrated.
Participants
The tutorial targets students, researchers, and practitioners interested in conceptual modeling, digital ecosystems, and digital transformation. It is suitable for both beginners and experts in design thinking.
Value for Participants
Participants will gain hands-on experience in design thinking and conceptual modeling, learn how to create and use digital twins of design artifacts, and understand how to support shared understanding and innovation in digital ecosystems.
Required infrastructure
Participants should install the Scene2Model tool in advance. A laptop, stable internet connection, and interactive setup are required.
For more details on the tutorial, you can download the PDF guide here.