CHAPTER FIVE

1. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE BUSINESS PROCESS MODELS

2. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Description A business process model describestasks and the ordering of these tasks: what work is performed and when it is performed. A business process model also captures who performs the tasks.

3. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Importance smooth businesses vs. rough businesses ؟ The smooth businessesexecute good business processes; the rough businesses execute poor ones. all restaurants pursue the same goals of serving food for hungry customers, but they differ in the details of their business processes. They greet customers differently, they take reservations differently, and they prepare dinners differently. business models in general are used for eight purposes:....

4. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activities An activity is a discrete chunk of work, something with a beginning and an end, that is performed one or more times. Typically an activity is one step of a larger business process. For example, Serve Appetizers is part of the larger business process Serve Meal. There are other activities within Serve Meal, including Serve Entrees and Serve Desserts.

5. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activities Every activity performs work. when a call is made to a help desk, instead the call is a trigger for the first help desk activity, Get Caller Info. activities rarely appear by themselves. Instead, several activities typically appear together as part of a larger process.

6. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Sequence flows A sequence flow is a connection between two activities, showing that one activity is performed before the other. A sequence flow is shown as a solid line with an arrow, from the activity performed first to the activity performed next. A sequence flow means only that one activity occurs after the other.An interaction is labeled by the deliverable that one organization delivers to theother. A sequence flow is usually unlabeled and is never labeled with adeliverable.

7. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity attributes capture details of the work. • Name • Description • Time • Resource (role) • Cost

8. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Name Activity names are short, typically no longer than four words, and better when they are two or three words. The name of an activity need not convey the details of the way the activity is performed. Names start with a verb.

9. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Description The description of an activity gives more detail about the work, what it means, and how it is performed. A description typically notes whether a software application is used to perform the activity. If an application is used, the description includes the way the person interacts with the application.

10. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Description example Check the reservation book to see whether the reservation exists. Verify that the party arrived before the reservation time. Use the reservation system to check whether the reservation exists, searching for the reservation by name or by time. Verify that the party is not late, that they have arrived before the reservation expires.

11. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Time Activities are temporal. Each activity takes time to complete. Some activities are fast, taking seconds. Other activities are slow, taking months.

12. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Time Often there are delays: • delays before the work, • delays during the work, • delays because of the work.

13. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Time It is important for subsequent process analysis to capture these times. If the business process is simulated, the activity times are used by the simulation engine.

14. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Resource (role) Typically an activity is performed by a person, the person who does the work of the activity. This person is called the activity’s resource. Of course different people perform the same activity at different times. So the resource of an activity is not a single person but a role. a role is the responsibility a personassumes when he holds a position in an organization. For example, therole Host is the resource of the activity Check Reservations. When a particularparty arrives, their reservations are checked by a single person who playsthat role.

15. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Activity Cost People do not work for free. Every resource has a cost, and the cost varies from role to role and from person to person. Details about costs of the resources are useful to understand the end-to-end cost of a process.(What is 'End To End') ?

16. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Manual vs. IT-supported Some activities are manual work, performed by a resource without any assistance (welcoming an arriving party). some activities are supported by technology (looking up names in a reservations system). We can then analyze how new technology could be used and how the activity’s resource would interact with that new technology in performing the activity.

17. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Software activities Some activities are solely software, performed entirely by a software application, with no person involved. In this solely software activity, the application does not support a (human) resource who is performing the activity. Instead the application is the sole resource performing the activity.

18. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Activity attributes Software activities Business process modeling is not about modeling software; it is about modeling the work that people do. Solely software activities are uncommon in good business process models.

19. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Events A business process has a beginning and an end. A process begins with a start eventand ends with an end event. All the activities of the business process— the actual work performed—occur after the start event and before the end event.

20. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Events Activity names are typically imperative sentences; they sound like commands. The verb is at the beginning of the name. The name of a start event is typically a declarative sentence, describing something that happens. The verb is at the end.

21. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Events Most processes have multiple end events. Diners might leave after eating and paying, or they might leave early, disgruntled by long delays in their restaurant experience. They might even leave before they are seated, after waiting too long for a table, or because they are called out to perform emergency surgery. A process can also have multiple start events, showing different ways that work begins.

22. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Intermediate Events Some processes have an intermediate event, an event that happens after the process starts but before it ends. Many intermediate events model delays. Like start events, the name of an intermediate event is also a declarative sentence.

23. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE EventDescription Events of all three varieties can have descriptions, just as an activity can have a description.

24. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE EventDescription Events also support other attributes. Start events record detail about when work starts. For example, Diner Arrives includes attributes modeling how often dining parties arrive, how many on which night of the week, the sizes of the parties, and so on. These attributes are used for process simulation.

25. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Lanes A business process model graphically shows who performs which activities. Each role that performs activities in a business process has a lane. When a customer is shown, the customer is usually the top lane. Putting the customer on top is a common convention that makes business process models easier to read.

26. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Lanes

27. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Lanes When a process model has more than two lanes, the modeler must decide which lane is placed where. A good rule of thumb is to place lanes to minimize sequence flow

28. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Gateways 1-Exclusive gateways : We use a gateway to model sequence flow alternatives. A gateway is depicted as a diamond shape. Multiple sequence flows exit a gateway. Gateways are named. The name of a gateway is a question, with the alternative answers to the question as labels on the outgoing sequence flows.

29. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Gateways

30. Gateways • 5.20 Seating flowshows more of the same process. If the party has no reservationsand no table is available, the host looks for a way to arrange tables. If no such rearrangementexists, the party will wait for a table, perhaps waiting 20 minutes or anhour. Ideally the party simply waits until a table is available, but in practice manyparties are impatient and ask periodically about the status of their table. So theprocess in Figure 5.10 shows the host checking for availability after a wait, onlyto sometimes ask the party to wait some more. The activities Check Availability,Check for Rearrangement, and Wait for Table are part of a sequence flowloop, a cycle of activities connected by sequence flow.

31. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Gateways 5.20Seating flow

32. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE 2-Parallel Gateways The previous gateways are exclusive gateways. With an exclusive gateway, either one sequence flow is taken or the other is taken. But not every gateway is an exclusive gateway. A parallel gateway starts parallel work—two (or more) sequence flows that then progress at the same time, perhaps to be later joined back together by another parallel gateway.

33. 2-Parallel Gateways Consider the process shown in Figure 5.11, with detail on the preparation of appetizers, entrees, and desserts. In Figure 5.11, the chef prepares the appetizers and the entrees at the same time. The appetizers can be prepared quickly and are served to the customers when they are ready. The parallel gateway Split Order splits the work into two parallel flows, one traveling the upper sequence flow to Prepare Entrees, and one traveling the lower sequence flow to Prepare Appetizers. After the appetizers and entrees are served, the sequence flows arrive at the other (unnamed) parallel gateway. At this point they are combined back together, and the subsequent activity Serve Desserts is performed only once.

34. parallel gateway mandates the use of both sequence flows. Figure 5.11 says that both entrees and appetizers are prepared. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Parallel Gateways Figure 5.11

35. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Inclusive Gateways A party can order just appetizers, just entrees, or both appetizers and entrees. Instead of using a parallel gateway, this situation can be modeled with an inclusive gateway.

36. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Inclusive Gateways An inclusive gateway allows either outgoing sequence flow to be taken or both to be taken in parallel.

37. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Inclusive Gateways

38. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Inclusive Gateways The behavior of the first gateway—Split Order—is a bit complex. When a work arrives at Split Order, sometimes it needs to travel the upper path, sometimes the lower path, and sometimes work needs to be split so that the two paths can occur in parallel.

39. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Inclusive Gateways Chapter 11 describes how to simulate an inclusive gateway, providing percentages (for example) for how often the upper and lower paths are taken.

40. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Default SF & Conditional SF One of the outgoing sequence flows from a gateway can be marked as a default. A default sequence flow is the one taken if there is no reason to take another sequence flow.

41. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Default SF & Conditional SF

42. conditional sequence flow • conditional sequence flow. A conditional sequence flow is a sequence flow that includes a condition, a description of the situation under which it is permissible to take that sequence flow. The conditional sequence flow is depicted with a miniaturediamond at its beginning.

43. There is an alternative notation to using an inclusive gateway

44. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Default SF & Conditional SF There is an alternative notation to using an inclusive gateway

45. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Sub-processes Some activities are atomic; there is no more detail about the activity than its name, its description, and its attributes. Such activities are called tasks. A sub-process is an activity that has this extra detail, that can itself be described as a process.

46. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Sub-processes

47. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Sub-processes referred to as the lower-level process and What if we press on “seat party”?

48. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Sub-processes upper-level process

49. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Sub-processes The previous sub-process is “independent” the sub-process could be “embedded 1-"what is the drawbacks of embedded processes ?2-Subprocessesare also easier to maintain why?!

50. Dr. Rami Gharaibeh CHAPTER FIVE Compensation & other Conditions A dining party might leave rather than wait for a table. Actually, a party could leave at any time—just after they arrive or when they learn of a wait, while waiting or after they see a menu. They might leave during the meal because their child is misbehaving or because someone in the party becomes sick.