Towards Human-Executable Business Process Modeling

1. Towards Human-Executable Business Process Modeling JanisBarzdins, Edgars Rencis, Agris Sostaks InstituteofMathematicsandComputerScience, UniversityofLatvia ____________________________________________________________ Tenth International Baltic Conference on Databases and Information Systems, July 9, 2012, Vilnius, Lithuania

2. Organizations are process-oriented • Processes = tasks to beperformed • simplecase – sequencedlistofprocesses • naturalorgraphicallanguage • realcase – processeshavebecomemuchmorecomplex • branching • conditions • terms • parrallelism • etc. • Whowillexecutethoesprocesses? • Whowillperformthetasks?

3. Processes can be executed by... • ... a machine • everythingneeds to befullyautomated • not a realisticscenario • whatifsomeunforeseenexceptionoccurs? • ... a human • humanneeds to understandthe process completely • Whathave to bedone? • Whendoes it have to bedone? • Howdoes it have to bedone? • machinecanstillhelp a lot • whatsoftwareoptions do wehave?

4. So what do we have to choose from? http://www.column2.com/2005/05/bpm-momentum http://www.silverbearcafe.com/chasm.html http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc168592.aspx • goodbasefordomain-specific process modelinglanguages •  appropriatetooling • needs to be built from scratch • needs to be redesigned for every new system • expensive, • complicated, • contains a lot of unnecessary features

5. Problems • Whatkindofinstructionscanbeunderstoodandexecutedby a human? • textualvsgraphicallanguage • one page of good graphics can supersede tenpagesoftext • isthere a goodgraphicalnotationfordecribingprocesses? • whatexactlyisgood? • How a supporttoolcanbeimplementedforthelanguage • assumingwehave a goodlanguage... • theimplementationshouldbeeasyandconvenient

6. The definition of good(in terms of language and tool support) • Languagemustbesimpleenough • performersarenot IT professionals • moreonthislater... • Languagemustincludetheorganizationspecifics • it mustbedomain-specific • toolmustofferpossibility to extendthelanguageeasily • Toolmustalleviateexecutingthelanguage • connection to organization'sinformationsystem • allfeaturesaccessible "byoneclick"

7. The language base • Wecandevelopnewdomain-specific process descriptionlanguagesupon it • no need to buildfromscratch • languagesforsimilardomainsusuallycontainsomecommonpart • Thebaseissupportedby a tool • additions to toolingmustbemadeonly to supportadditions to thebase • Performerscanunderstandthe process completely • languageprovides 95% • toolprovidesremaining 5% "byoneclick"

8. Good graphical language • Humanbeingcanperceiveinformationeasier, if it isstructuredinnaturallanguage sentences • JamesRumbaugh, 1991: • classdiagramsshouldbereadableasnaturallanguagetext • Samecanbeapplied to process diagrams • good process shouldbereadableasnaturallanguagetext • afterall, processeswereinitiallydescribedintextualform

9. Graphics  Text • Subset of UML Activity diagrams • slightly modified semantics • The Golden Mean • simple enough • regular person can understand it • natural language generator can be built for it • expressive enough • sufficiently wide class or processes can be described

10. Elements of language base Start Process Header Action Time Condition General Condition Decision Exception Fork GuardConditions DetailedAction Object Join Reference Merge End

11. Text generation Some agreements about how to develop process diagrams (using correct verb forms, etc.)

12. Diagram to MS Word

13. Description of process steps

14. Description of process steps

15. Case study • Process modelinglanguagefortheUniversityofLatvia (UL) • Severaltasks • to create a BPM languagenotationfor UL • languagebasesupplementedwith UL-specific • to create a supportingtool • donebyusingthe GRAF platform • to performinitialmodelingof UL processes • includingtraces to regulations, lawsandfeaturesof LUIS (IS of LU) • madereachable "byoneclick" fromthe process description • severalsignificantareashavebeencovered • to publish process descriptionsingraphicalform • publishedinintranetof UL keepingkeepingallconnections to documentsourcesand LUIS alive • to generatetextualdescriptionofprocessesin UL-specificform • donebyusingthe MS Word enginebuiltinthe GRAF platform

17. Lessons learned • Human-executablesystemsareverywidespread • universities, hospitals, governmentinstitutions, etc. • banksrequirehigherlevelofprecision (workflow) • Languagebase – verysimpleandeasilyperceptible • userscanbeeasyeasilyandrapidlytrained • veryimportantfeatureofanylanguage • connection to naturallanguageincreasestheunderstanding • clearseparationbetweensemanticsandsyntaxof elements • Modelingcandiscoverdeficienciesandincompletenessindocuments • Technologybehindthe GRAF platformisverygood • languagedevelopment process differsentirelyfromtheoneofheavy-weightmodelingtools • Diagramsaremoresuitable to humanusagethantextual process description • usershadnotreadtheregulationsbecauseinformationwasnoteasilyobtainable • ingraphicalformeverypieceofinformationcanbelocatedmorequickly

18. The conclusion Processmodel may (and should) serve as aninformation backbone, which helps the end-user to easily access the services and toolsneeded to complete his/her tasks