Business Process Modeling

e-Framework Workshop

Balbir Barn
12th February 2007
Agenda

• Why we construct Business Process Models

• A historical context
• Approaches to business process modelling
• Business Process Modelling Notation
• Tools and standards summary

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 What is a Business Process?

• Davenport & Short (1990) define business process as

– "a set of logically related tasks performed to achieve a defined
business outcome." A process is "a structured, measured set of
activities designed to produce a specified output for a particular
customer or market.
• Business processes as transformations of inputs to
outputs
input output

• Other models available:

– Language-Action-Perspective (LAP) (Winograd and Flores
1986)
• Production, coordination tasks using language for
communication
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 Purposes of Business Process Modeling:
Organization Design
• Process Documentation
• Process Reorganization
• Process Monitoring and Controlling
• Continuous Improvement
• Quality Management: ISO 9000
• Benchmarking: Compare with best
practice
• Knowledge Management: 4
Purposes of Business Process
Modeling: Information Systems Design
• Selection of ERP software
• Model based Customizing
• Software Development
• Workflow Management
• Simulation

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What to model of a business process

• Tasks
• Coordination between tasks
– synchronization
– decisions
– parallel work
– repetition
–…
• Organizational responsibilities
• Required resources and constraints
• Information input and output
• …
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Historical Contexts

• Organizations have been structured around

Adam Smith’s idea to break down work into
simple discrete tasks performed by workers
with basic skills (c.f. Taylorism)
• Organizing by Function leads to:
– Loss of flexibility
– Inability to respond to customers quickly

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Business Process Re-Engineering – the
first wave
• Business Process Re-Engineering was seen as an
appropriate remedy:
– 1990: Davenport and Short
– 1990: Hammer: “Don’t automate, obliterate”
• Focus on the horizontal view on how things are done
and not who decides…. (organizational charts)
• Characterised by:
– High failure rates
– Loss of knowledge
– Dependent on immature ERP technology

8
Business Process Change – the 2nd wave

• 1994 – 2002: Questions on the validity of the

clean slate approach
• Instead a focus on continuous business
improvement and cross organizational
processes
– Made possible by maturing ERP technology and
interchange

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Business Process Management – the 3rd
wave
• 2003 - now
• Organizations need to move away from hard
coded processes (Smith and Fingar 2003)
• Supports both business improvement (as is – to
be modelling) and process innovation (the
future)

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Business Process Management

• Business Process Management (or BPM) refers to

activities performed by organizations to manage and, if
necessary, to improve their business processes
• Made possible by new tools, technologies and
standards
• Activities include:
– Process Design
– Process Enactment
– Process Monitoring

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 The BPM Life cycle
Ideally performed in a single
Technical change is accepted: tool or a set of integrated
analysis
toolsets
Human change
-Assess human capability
-Human implications of process requirements
change
-Human change management
requirements process model
design

evaluation implementation

enactment
case data infrastructure

case data Model based

-The model is the process
monitoring -Process is self-
documenting
-Design is self-executing
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Business Process Management scope

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Process Modelling Concepts (Basic)

• Organizational Unit
• Process
• Activity
• Role
• Flow Lane
• Process Decomposition
• Artifact

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 Types of Processes
• Core Process
– Satisfy external customers
– Directly add value to the business
– They respond to a customer request and generate customer a
satisfaction
• Supporting Process
– Satisfy internal customers
– Does not directly add value to the business
• Process Patterns
– Case Process – entity passed between roles that perform
some update on the entity
– Event Driven Process – event is raised and a process
executes in response to the event
– Cycle-Driven Process – single process happens periodically –
only one such instance
– State Maintaining Process - maintain the state of one or more15
objects
 Approaches to Process Modelling –
Notational Perspective
• Rational Unified Process (Activity
Modelling)
• Business Process Modelling Notation -
BPMN
• STRIM (Ould 98) (partially LAP)
• IDEF0 (Functional decomposition)
• Others:
– IDEF0;
– Information Engineering… input output

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RUP/Activity
Modelling
• Use Case
Models at the
Business
Process Level
• Business
Actors
• Business Use
Cases

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 Concepts
• Activity
• Decision
Point
• Guard
condition
• Parallel
Activities
• Merged
Activities

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 Using Swim lanes
• Swim lanes identify the
role or organizational unit
responsible for the
activity
• Named Vertical columns
• Derived from Rummler-
Brache’s Process
modelling methodology

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Definition of BPMN

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BPMN Notation

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Core Set of Notations

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Complete Set - Events

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Complete Set - Activities

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Complete Set - Connections

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Complete Set - Pools

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Complete Set - Gateways

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Normal Flow Example

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Process modelling – how?

• Domain analysis – immersion in the domain

– Documents
– Systems – explore use of existing systems
– Interviews
• Interviews
– 3 questions:
– Who? Who is involved? (The roles)
– What do they do? (and what order do they do it?)
– What changes as a result of their actions?
– Where else do they get help from?
• More help (and more detailed) is available from:
• http://www.rational.com/rup

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“To Be” Process Modelling Guidelines
• Check that all steps are • Review Inter-process
needed interactions
– Ask why? – Analyse handoffs between
roles, departments and
• Review Decision points individuals
– Are there defined standards? • Automate repetitive steps
– Move decision points earlier • Review cycle times
– Do you need them?
– Identify activities that take a
– Insert time boxes to reduce long time
iterations
– Try and reduce the cycle time
• Cut out the middle man
for these activities
– Avoid multiple approvals
• Look for Parallelism
• Redesign data forms
– Aggregate entry information – Review opportunities for
doing work in parallel
– UI guidelines for forms
– Consider training
• Better to do Domain Model
opportunities
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Some common issues with business
process modelling
• Managing collaborative activities within business
process models that are derived from the
“transformational” approach
• Canonical models and variability management
• Notations are stabilising but methods are lagging
• Process decomposition
– Some rules available, methodology dependent
– Becomes more important when coupled with Business process
execution and Web Services
• Managing requirements from business processes, to
use cases to systems
– Is the use case driven approach still needed? (non question)
• IT enablement focus – Human Interaction Management
tends to be relegated to forms driven approaches
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Canonical business process models

• Well-defined, narrowly scoped business

domains can choose to agree a business
process definition
• There will always be a need for variations from
the canonical model
• The issue is how to manage standard models
and their variations within a single model
• The JISC funded COVARM project presented
an approach to variability management

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 Tools, Technologies and Standards
• Relevant standards Enactment Technology • Human Interaction
- Notations for enactment • http://humanedj.com/
• BPMN 1.0 Final adopted
-BPEL
standard – Feb 2006 -Enactment Engines
• UML 2.0 Specification -ORACLE BPEL Designer
• BPEL4WS 1.1 -IBM Websphere
-Intalio
• BPEL 2.0 in process

BPM Tools
Specification Technology Methodology
- Notations for process design - methods, techniques,
and specification guidance for process
-BPMN • Relevant Tools
modelling
-UML 2.0 Activity • BPMN tools
Diagrams -Information Engineering
– See here for a list
-ECD -IDEF0
– http://www.bpmn.org/BP
-Petrinets -RUP/Activity Modelling
MN_Supporters.htm
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Process vs Use Case
• Activity Diagrams
provide more new
info than use cases
• Use Case
Narratives are used
but provide no new
information

From: Dobing and Parsons (2006)

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 Process Modelling and e-Framework

Course Validation

Business Process
Management Tools
Main focus of
e-Framework
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Domain Maps – Functions and Processes

Student Administration High Level Functions

Student Enrolment

Student Complaints
Processes

Student Course Deferral

Student Results

Domain Map

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Summary

• Process modelling is important for SOA (and soa?)

• There is a new wave of technologies - toolsets and
notations
– (model driven) business process management
• Processes are central to understanding and developing
domains but are not sufficiently represented in the e-
Framework
• Process modelling needs to be part of a method
framework to ensure that design and development is
streamlined
– E.g. overlap between process modelling and use case
modelling

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Useful References
• http://www.omg.org/technology/documents/ • Why Current Document Collaboration Sucks by
bms_spec_catalog.htm Butler Group, a European IT research and
advisory organisation
• Why Workflow Sucks by Jon Pyke, Chair of the
• www.intalio.com Workflow Management Coalition
• Beyond BPM: Knowledge Intensive BPM by Jon
Pyke, Chair of the Workflow Management
• www.bpmn.org Coalition
• BPM: A SystemicPerspective by Janne J.
• www.covarm.tvu.ac.uk Korhonen, co-steer of the EDS BPM/Workflow
Group
presentationarticle (bptrends.com)
• Workflow coalition • All the World is a Project by Peter Fingar, co-
author, "Business Process Management - The
• http://www- Third Wave"
128.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/librar • The Coming IT Flip Flop: And the Emergence of
y/content/RationalEdge/sep03/f_umlbasics Human Interaction Management Systems by Peter
_db.pdf Fingar, co-author, "Business Process Management
• Davenport, T.H. & Short, J.E. (1990 - The Third Wave"
Summer). "The New Industrial Engineering: • Re-schooling the Corporation for BPM by Ronald
Information Technology and Business Aronica, co-author, "The Death of e - and the Birth
Process Redesign," Sloan Management of the Real New Economy"
Review, pp. 11-27 • Keith Harrison-Broninski. Human Interactions: The
Heart and Soul of Business Process Management.
ISBN 0-929652-44-4
• Peter Fingar et al. Extreme Competition:
Innovation And the Great 21st Century Business
Reformation. ISBN 0-929652-38-X
• Business Process Management Group In Search
Of BPM Excellence: Straight From The Thought
Leaders. ISBN 0-929652-40-1

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39
 Why We Model Business Processes
• Business Process Reengineering
– We model the business by defining a “Process
Architecture” as a first step to defining an
organizational structure aligned to new business
processes.
– (Hammer and Champy 1993)
• TQM – Incremental Improvement
– business processes are modelled as diagnostics
tool to identify areas for improvement
• Design of IT Systems
• Definition of Procedures / Business Rules
– Quality manuals etc

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Exercise 1 –
Business Process
Re-engineering

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