The present invention relates to a method for network management comprising configuration of control protocols between network elements in a network represented through a current, static, network element object model comprising a number of managed objects with attributes and instances and representing resources. It comprises the steps of: transforming the current network element object model to a machine readable and executable formal network element object model; identifying configuration tasks needed for the configuration of the relevant control protocols; modelling a formal configuration task model using information about the configuration tasks and the formal network element object model; building a formal configuration workflow model using the formal network element object model and the formal configuration task model, said formal configuration workflow model defining the relationships between different configuration tasks required for performing or completing a number of given actions or to achieve a number of given goals.