bpm

Fall 2011 Survey: SharePoint and BPM

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Every six months we run a survey about how people are using SharePoint.  Some surprising results have been revealed.  For instance, in the survey running now through October 1st, we see that BPM/workflow is the #1 third-party app being considered for running on top of the SharePoint platform.  In the last survey from Winter 2011, […]

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OpenText Metastorm Named KMWorld Magazine Trend-Setting Product of the Year

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We are thrilled to announce that for the 7th consecutive year, OpenText Metastorm’s enterprise portfolio has been named as a Trend Setting Product of 2011 by KMWorld Magazine! KMWorld recognizes OpenText Metastorm for demonstrating clearly identifiable technology breakthroughs that service a full spectrum of constituencies, especially customers, while seamlessly integrating into enterprise-wide environments. This year […]

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Are Business Process Management and Business Architecture a perfect match?

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Whenever I suggest collaboration between these two worlds, I always observe some sort of astonishment from my interlocutors. Many Enterprise Architects or Business Architects do not realise there may be synergies. Business Process Management (BPM) team have not understood what Enterprise Architecture is all about and the other way around…. There is no a single definition of Business Process Management, often it means different things to different people. To keep it very generic, BPM relates to any activities an organization does to support its process efforts.

image
There are many activities which can be included in such efforts:
· The use of industry Business Reference Model (or Business Process Reference Model), a reference for the operational activities of an organization, a framework facilitating a functional Lines of Business, such as

o The Federal Enterprise Architecture Business Reference Model of the US Federal Government
o The DoD Business Reference Model
o The Open Group Exploration and Mining Business Reference Model (https://www.opengroup.org/emmmv/uploads/40/22706/Getting_started_with_the_EM_Business_Model_v_01.00.pdf)
o Frameworx (eTOM) for Telco companies
o The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR®) model
o The SAP R/3 Reference Model
o The Oracle Business Models : Oracle Industry Reference Model for Banking, (IRM), Oracle Retail Reference Model
o And others…

· The use of organization specific Business Reference models
· The use of Business process improvement methodologies

o Lean, a quantitative data driven methodology based on statistics, process understanding and process control
o Six Sigma, a methodology that mainly focuses on eliminating bad products or services to clients by using statistical evaluation

· Business Process Reengineering, which in reality is a facet of BPM
· The understanding of Business Change Management, the process that empowers staff to accept changes that will improve performance and productivity
· The understanding of Business Transformation, the continuous process, essential to any organization in implementing its business strategy and achieving its vision
· The use of Business Rules Management which enables organizations to manage business rules for decision automation
· The understanding of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services to reduce costs and increase efficiency
· The support of Business Process modeling and design, which is illustrated description of business processes, usually created with flow diagrams. The model contains the relationship between activities, processes, sub-processes and information, as well as roles, the organization and resources. This can done with many notations such as flow chart, functional flow block diagram, control flow diagram, Gantt chart, PERT diagram, IDEF, and nowadays with the standard de facto notations such as UML and BPMN
· The support of BPM tools and suites implementation. With the right, process models can be simulated, to drive workflow or BPMS systems, and can be used as the basis for an automated process monitoring system (BAM)
· The support of Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), the ability to have end-to-end visibility and control over all parts of a process or transaction that spans multiple applications and people in one or even more companies.

To combine Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture for better business outcomes is definitely the way forward, where BPM provides the business context, understanding, and- metrics, and Enterprise Architecture provides the discipline to translate business vision and strategy into architectural changes. Both are needed for sustainable continuous improvement. When referring to Enterprise Architecture, we would mainly refer to Business Architecture. Business Architecture involves more than just the structure of business processes. It also entails the organization of departments, roles, documents, assets, and all other process-related information.

Business Architects may be defining and implementing the Business Process framework and, in parallel, influencing the strategic direction for Business Process Management and improvement methodologies (e.g. Lean, Six Sigma). The business process owners and Business Analysts are working within their guidelines at multiple levels throughout the organizations’ business process. They have roles and responsibilities to manage, monitor and control their processes.
An important tool in developing Business Architecture is a Business Reference Model. These types of models are enormously beneficial. They can be developed in the organization to build and extend the information architecture. The shared vocabulary (verbal and visual) that emerges from these efforts promotes clear and effective communication.

To illustrate the touch points between Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management, I have illustrated in the table below the synergies between the two approaches using TOGAF® 9.

image

In this table, we observe that, there is a perfect match between Business Process Management and the use of an Enterprise Architecture framework such as TOGAF. BPM is often project based and the Business Architect (or Enterprise Architect) may be responsible for identifying cross-project and cross-process capabilities. It can be considered as being the backbone of an Enterprise Architecture program. We can also add to this, that Service Oriented Architecture is the core operational or transactional capability while BPM does the coordination and integration into business processes.

When using BPM tools and suites, you should also consider the following functionalities: workflow, enterprise application integration, content management and business activity monitoring. These four components are traditionally provided by vendors as separate applications which are merged through BPM into a single application with high levels of integration. The implementation of a BPM solution should theoretically eliminate the maintenance and support cost of these four applications resulting in reducing the total cost of ownership.

Business Architecture provides the governance, alignment and transformational context for BPM across business units and silos. Enterprise Architects, Business Architects, Business Analysts should work together with BPM teams, when approaching the topic of Business Process Management. BPM efforts need structures and appropriate methodologies. It needs a structure to guide efforts at different levels of abstraction (separating “the what“ (the hierarchical structure of business functions) from “the how” (how the desired results are achieved), a documented approach and structure to navigate among the business processes of the organization, i.e. a Business Architecture. They also need a methodology such as an Enterprise Architecture framework to retain and leverage what they have learned about managing and conducting BPM projects.

Are Business Process Management and Business Architecture a perfect match?

by

Whenever I suggest collaboration between these two worlds, I always observe some sort of astonishment from my interlocutors. Many Enterprise Architects or Business Architects do not realise there may be synergies. Business Process Management (BPM) team have not understood what Enterprise Architecture is all about and the other way around…. There is no a single definition of Business Process Management, often it means different things to different people. To keep it very generic, BPM relates to any activities an organization does to support its process efforts.

image
There are many activities which can be included in such efforts:
· The use of industry Business Reference Model (or Business Process Reference Model), a reference for the operational activities of an organization, a framework facilitating a functional Lines of Business, such as

o The Federal Enterprise Architecture Business Reference Model of the US Federal Government
o The DoD Business Reference Model
o The Open Group Exploration and Mining Business Reference Model (https://www.opengroup.org/emmmv/uploads/40/22706/Getting_started_with_the_EM_Business_Model_v_01.00.pdf)
o Frameworx (eTOM) for Telco companies
o The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR®) model
o The SAP R/3 Reference Model
o The Oracle Business Models : Oracle Industry Reference Model for Banking, (IRM), Oracle Retail Reference Model
o And others…

· The use of organization specific Business Reference models
· The use of Business process improvement methodologies

o Lean, a quantitative data driven methodology based on statistics, process understanding and process control
o Six Sigma, a methodology that mainly focuses on eliminating bad products or services to clients by using statistical evaluation

· Business Process Reengineering, which in reality is a facet of BPM
· The understanding of Business Change Management, the process that empowers staff to accept changes that will improve performance and productivity
· The understanding of Business Transformation, the continuous process, essential to any organization in implementing its business strategy and achieving its vision
· The use of Business Rules Management which enables organizations to manage business rules for decision automation
· The understanding of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services to reduce costs and increase efficiency
· The support of Business Process modeling and design, which is illustrated description of business processes, usually created with flow diagrams. The model contains the relationship between activities, processes, sub-processes and information, as well as roles, the organization and resources. This can done with many notations such as flow chart, functional flow block diagram, control flow diagram, Gantt chart, PERT diagram, IDEF, and nowadays with the standard de facto notations such as UML and BPMN
· The support of BPM tools and suites implementation. With the right, process models can be simulated, to drive workflow or BPMS systems, and can be used as the basis for an automated process monitoring system (BAM)
· The support of Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), the ability to have end-to-end visibility and control over all parts of a process or transaction that spans multiple applications and people in one or even more companies.

To combine Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture for better business outcomes is definitely the way forward, where BPM provides the business context, understanding, and- metrics, and Enterprise Architecture provides the discipline to translate business vision and strategy into architectural changes. Both are needed for sustainable continuous improvement. When referring to Enterprise Architecture, we would mainly refer to Business Architecture. Business Architecture involves more than just the structure of business processes. It also entails the organization of departments, roles, documents, assets, and all other process-related information.

Business Architects may be defining and implementing the Business Process framework and, in parallel, influencing the strategic direction for Business Process Management and improvement methodologies (e.g. Lean, Six Sigma). The business process owners and Business Analysts are working within their guidelines at multiple levels throughout the organizations’ business process. They have roles and responsibilities to manage, monitor and control their processes.
An important tool in developing Business Architecture is a Business Reference Model. These types of models are enormously beneficial. They can be developed in the organization to build and extend the information architecture. The shared vocabulary (verbal and visual) that emerges from these efforts promotes clear and effective communication.

To illustrate the touch points between Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management, I have illustrated in the table below the synergies between the two approaches using TOGAF® 9.

image

In this table, we observe that, there is a perfect match between Business Process Management and the use of an Enterprise Architecture framework such as TOGAF. BPM is often project based and the Business Architect (or Enterprise Architect) may be responsible for identifying cross-project and cross-process capabilities. It can be considered as being the backbone of an Enterprise Architecture program. We can also add to this, that Service Oriented Architecture is the core operational or transactional capability while BPM does the coordination and integration into business processes.

When using BPM tools and suites, you should also consider the following functionalities: workflow, enterprise application integration, content management and business activity monitoring. These four components are traditionally provided by vendors as separate applications which are merged through BPM into a single application with high levels of integration. The implementation of a BPM solution should theoretically eliminate the maintenance and support cost of these four applications resulting in reducing the total cost of ownership.

Business Architecture provides the governance, alignment and transformational context for BPM across business units and silos. Enterprise Architects, Business Architects, Business Analysts should work together with BPM teams, when approaching the topic of Business Process Management. BPM efforts need structures and appropriate methodologies. It needs a structure to guide efforts at different levels of abstraction (separating “the what“ (the hierarchical structure of business functions) from “the how” (how the desired results are achieved), a documented approach and structure to navigate among the business processes of the organization, i.e. a Business Architecture. They also need a methodology such as an Enterprise Architecture framework to retain and leverage what they have learned about managing and conducting BPM projects.

Metastorm and Microsoft meet in the clouds with M3

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Designed to bring modeling to the masses, OpenText’s Metastorm M3 is now even more accessible as a cloud-based application on Microsoft’s Windows Azure Marketplace. To be included, M3 had to undergo specific certification by Microsoft in addition to its prior certification as a Windows Azure solution. This makes Metastorm M3 the only enterprise-class business planning […]

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Explaining Capability Modeling to Business Process Professionals

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As I’ve noted in prior posts, many hard working business process management professionals find the concept of “Business Capabilities” to be confusing at best, and counterproductive at worst.  In a recent article in BPTrends, Paul Harmon made…

Doing More with Less, the Smart Way

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A few weeks ago I was paging through an issue of Mother Jones and the article, “All Work and No Pay: The Great Speedup” caught my eye. The story discussed how more and more, managers are asking their employees to take on heavier workloads with longer hours without any incentives. What was even more striking […]

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Three Big Topics in Financial Services

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In the wake of this historic, global economic downturn there is little room for error among financial services companies. Volatile market conditions, impending regulatory requirements, and an intense competitive atmosphere have banking and insurance companies of all sizes rethinking risk, streamlining operations, and seeking new ways to create a more adaptable enterprise. Now, more than […]

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Battling Regulatory Pressures in Life Sciences

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It’s no secret that Life Sciences is one of the most highly regulated industries with ever-increasing obligations and scrutiny. As these requirements increase it is essential that you are prepared for changes that you can expect will continue to come. Life Sciences companies should build into their operational structure a plan for continuous change and […]

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Towards Next Generation Process Execution

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A considerable part of my professional time is spent on advising people on discovering, redesigning, and — if possible and feasible — automating their business processes. Often, trivial, cumbersome, and predictable processes can be formalised and executed using a process engine (also known as BPMS, Business Process Management Suites). Process execution is usually combined with an enterprise service bus (ESB) or middleware layer, which supplies data sources and exposes business transactions to the process layer in an open, reusable, and interoperable fashion.

BPMS is by no means a new concept. Most contemporary BPMS platforms began as workflow engines and CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tools, which subsequently found valuable use in the rising Java EE and enterprise application integration (EAI) markets of the 90’s and onwards. This, combined with an increasing interest in information management and enterprise integration, spawned today’s plethora of repository based modelling tools, sophisticated middleware technology, and process execution platforms.  

Looking into the crystal ball of process automation, what automation technologies can enterprises expect to see in the years to come? Now, here, any average IT analyst would probably come up with three all-too-often-adopted shrinkwrapped concepts:
  1. Cloud computing
  2. X-as-a-service
  3. Agile
In order to actually coming up with something original or different, I have deliberately omitted these three words in this blog entry. That is not to say that these trends aren’t influential or important, but they have already been stated elsewhere in thousands of blog posts, whitepapers, and academic papers. In the following sections I will present my stance towards aspects of next generation process automation.
Closed-Loop Roundtrip Engineering
Several toolchains support the so-called ‘roundtrip’ between repository-based enterprise modelling tools and implementation level process development tools. Too often this is a one-way exercise in which business processes are modelled by the business analyst, approved by the process owner and then exported to execution by the solution architect. However, once the process model hits the implementation floor, governance, roundtrip, and traceability are cut off. The process model is now materialised as source code rather than a visual model.

An improved, closed-loop roundtrip approach would most likely solve this bridge by making the process integration point both ways. This calls for an improved bridging strategy between the two worlds so they ultimately merge into one. That is not to say that the designed process model must equal the executable process model — the enterprise repository should still provide different, role-based views onto the same processes. The tipping point that I am arguing is that full traceability from model to execution demands to-way traceability and unified single-interface version control of all artefacts.
Light-weight Executable Process Models
Modelling standards such as BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Modelling Notation) claim to provide single, uniform language for modelling manual, semi-automated, and fully automated business processes. However, as several process practitioners have already emphasised, the notation is still far too rich and complex for non-technical professionals and businesspeople to fully comprehend. It is as if the notation, indulging in its own ambitions and adoption, has widened its gap too far and suddenly struggles to articulate all possible aspect of a process.

SOA practitioners struggled with the same complexity problems in the early 2000’s. Everywhere, new and half-baked service standards emerged, and some “standards” even offered duplicate functionality. For SOAP, what was meant to be a simple protocol for exchanging messages had now morphed into a wilderness of WS-* standards, policy documents, and pseudo recommendations. As a counter effect, REST (Representational State Transfer) was adopted as a viable, lightweight, and easy-to-implement alternative to the WS-* conglomerate. REST’s elegance was its simplicity, very similar to how the simplicity of the TCP and IP network protocols defeated complex, proprietary network protocols such as DECNET and Tymnet. Useful, open standards are easy to simple and easy to understand and communicate. WS-* was by no means a lightweight stack, just as BPMN 2.0 is too rich to be truly elegant.

What BPMS needs is a process modelling notation that is just as elegant as REST and TCP. The simpler notation, the easier it is for business analysts to pick up the notation and understand a particular model. Fewer moving parts and modelling exceptions also implies that the designed process is easier to execute. Consider the source code necessary for parsing a WSDL schema with surrounding WS-Security artefacts compared to lines of code necessary to retrieve and parse a JSON data structure across a TLS-encrypted wire. For execution, a light-weight process model format with different role-based process architecture views are necessary accommodate for easy-to-communicate and easy-to-execute processes models. 

Process Variations
My third idea is the notion of modelling and execution of process variants. Several enterprise modelling tools (such as ARIS) support the idea of variant artefacts, which allows for a configuration item to be traced back to its reference artefact. This is particularly useful when mapping a process model or architectural layer against a set of reference architectures, which in turn allows for quick discovery and gap analysis of compliance requirements.

However, for some reason this idea has yet not made its way to process execution land. The majority of BPMS platforms treat process models as isolated, transactional entities. References are done by related events or drilling into sub process models. Process layering and variation are completely unknown concepts in the world of execution, despite its inherent adoption in enterprise modelling. Many enterprises struggle with the need for selecting and executing a particular process variant depending on a set of pre-conditions, whilst still being able to reflect that the instance belongs to a particular group of variants. An executable billing process might vary slightly depending on the type of the client currently being billed, but the process is still the billing process. Integrating process variations in BPMS theory adds depth and context to the executable process models, as opposed to pure, isolated workflows.

Process Regulation and Self-Reference 
The research field of control theory and cybernetics has for long explored the properties of self-organising systems, which respond in a meaningful way to outside stimuli. Examples of cybernetic systems are everything from simple thermometers to complex jet fighter engines, which monitor and regulate their current state depending on the environment (such as temperature or altitude). Similarly, researchers in business process management (BPM) and process engineering have explored the idea of self-regulating processes: business processes that monitor, adjust, and control their own state, activity, and performance based on the general condition of the overall enterprise. In manufacturing this would be a process, which adjusts its production throughput automatically based on recent market trends received from the business intelligence system. Sales processes adjust their current inventory data based on market forecasts triggered by an external supplier. Car manufacturing robots do just-in-time adjustment of assembly line activity after observing a major slump in the stock market five minutes ago. The modern enterprise is event-driven, interconnected, and immediately responsive. However, in order for business processes to exploit this opportunity they need to become self-regulating or “self-aware.” Executable processes must be able to adjust their own complex states based on listeners and triggers from external events. This technology demands sophisticated complex event processing and a meta-process environment, which allows for easy and dynamic reconfiguration of process model layout, design, and performance based on external data. The change in state should not be limited to a pre-configured set of process patterns. Process models and metadata should automatically infer new possible process designs and subsequently select the most plausible design based on previous design choices, feedback, and execution data. 


To Be Continued
These considerations are only a small part of the ideas I have been collecting for next generation process automation, which could very well evolve into a general research programme on the future of BPMS. It is my opinion that we have reached a solid state of enterprise integration tools and middleware platforms. However, BPMS theory and practice is still in a state of flux: shiny new tools emerge every day, but fact is that we have very little experience with designing, deploying, and maintaining complex, large-scale process applications. Granted the general principles of software engineering and IS development theory still apply: effectively, most process applications involve enterprise systems in the large with a vast amount of moving parts and integration points. However, in order to successfully respond to the increasingly rapid markets and requirements change, we need faster, simpler, context-aware, and interconnected BPMS platforms driven by self-regulation and complex event processing. In my upcoming blog posts I will write more on this topic.

Towards Next Generation Process Execution

by
A considerable part of my professional time is spent on advising people on discovering, redesigning, and — if possible and feasible — automating their business processes. Often, trivial, cumbersome, and predictable processes can be formalised and executed using a process engine (also known as BPMS, Business Process Management Suites). Process execution is usually combined with an enterprise service bus (ESB) or middleware layer, which supplies data sources and exposes business transactions to the process layer in an open, reusable, and interoperable fashion.

BPMS is by no means a new concept. Most contemporary BPMS platforms began as workflow engines and CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) tools, which subsequently found valuable use in the rising Java EE and enterprise application integration (EAI) markets of the 90’s and onwards. This, combined with an increasing interest in information management and enterprise integration, spawned today’s plethora of repository based modelling tools, sophisticated middleware technology, and process execution platforms.  

Looking into the crystal ball of process automation, what automation technologies can enterprises expect to see in the years to come? Now, here, any average IT analyst would probably come up with three all-too-often-adopted shrinkwrapped concepts:
  1. Cloud computing
  2. X-as-a-service
  3. Agile
In order to actually coming up with something original or different, I have deliberately omitted these three words in this blog entry. That is not to say that these trends aren’t influential or important, but they have already been stated elsewhere in thousands of blog posts, whitepapers, and academic papers. In the following sections I will present my stance towards aspects of next generation process automation.
Closed-Loop Roundtrip Engineering
Several toolchains support the so-called ‘roundtrip’ between repository-based enterprise modelling tools and implementation level process development tools. Too often this is a one-way exercise in which business processes are modelled by the business analyst, approved by the process owner and then exported to execution by the solution architect. However, once the process model hits the implementation floor, governance, roundtrip, and traceability are cut off. The process model is now materialised as source code rather than a visual model.

An improved, closed-loop roundtrip approach would most likely solve this bridge by making the process integration point both ways. This calls for an improved bridging strategy between the two worlds so they ultimately merge into one. That is not to say that the designed process model must equal the executable process model — the enterprise repository should still provide different, role-based views onto the same processes. The tipping point that I am arguing is that full traceability from model to execution demands to-way traceability and unified single-interface version control of all artefacts.
Light-weight Executable Process Models
Modelling standards such as BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Modelling Notation) claim to provide single, uniform language for modelling manual, semi-automated, and fully automated business processes. However, as several process practitioners have already emphasised, the notation is still far too rich and complex for non-technical professionals and businesspeople to fully comprehend. It is as if the notation, indulging in its own ambitions and adoption, has widened its gap too far and suddenly struggles to articulate all possible aspect of a process.

SOA practitioners struggled with the same complexity problems in the early 2000’s. Everywhere, new and half-baked service standards emerged, and some “standards” even offered duplicate functionality. For SOAP, what was meant to be a simple protocol for exchanging messages had now morphed into a wilderness of WS-* standards, policy documents, and pseudo recommendations. As a counter effect, REST (Representational State Transfer) was adopted as a viable, lightweight, and easy-to-implement alternative to the WS-* conglomerate. REST’s elegance was its simplicity, very similar to how the simplicity of the TCP and IP network protocols defeated complex, proprietary network protocols such as DECNET and Tymnet. Useful, open standards are easy to simple and easy to understand and communicate. WS-* was by no means a lightweight stack, just as BPMN 2.0 is too rich to be truly elegant.

What BPMS needs is a process modelling notation that is just as elegant as REST and TCP. The simpler notation, the easier it is for business analysts to pick up the notation and understand a particular model. Fewer moving parts and modelling exceptions also implies that the designed process is easier to execute. Consider the source code necessary for parsing a WSDL schema with surrounding WS-Security artefacts compared to lines of code necessary to retrieve and parse a JSON data structure across a TLS-encrypted wire. For execution, a light-weight process model format with different role-based process architecture views are necessary accommodate for easy-to-communicate and easy-to-execute processes models. 

Process Variations
My third idea is the notion of modelling and execution of process variants. Several enterprise modelling tools (such as ARIS) support the idea of variant artefacts, which allows for a configuration item to be traced back to its reference artefact. This is particularly useful when mapping a process model or architectural layer against a set of reference architectures, which in turn allows for quick discovery and gap analysis of compliance requirements.

However, for some reason this idea has yet not made its way to process execution land. The majority of BPMS platforms treat process models as isolated, transactional entities. References are done by related events or drilling into sub process models. Process layering and variation are completely unknown concepts in the world of execution, despite its inherent adoption in enterprise modelling. Many enterprises struggle with the need for selecting and executing a particular process variant depending on a set of pre-conditions, whilst still being able to reflect that the instance belongs to a particular group of variants. An executable billing process might vary slightly depending on the type of the client currently being billed, but the process is still the billing process. Integrating process variations in BPMS theory adds depth and context to the executable process models, as opposed to pure, isolated workflows.

Process Regulation and Self-Reference 
The research field of control theory and cybernetics has for long explored the properties of self-organising systems, which respond in a meaningful way to outside stimuli. Examples of cybernetic systems are everything from simple thermometers to complex jet fighter engines, which monitor and regulate their current state depending on the environment (such as temperature or altitude). Similarly, researchers in business process management (BPM) and process engineering have explored the idea of self-regulating processes: business processes that monitor, adjust, and control their own state, activity, and performance based on the general condition of the overall enterprise. In manufacturing this would be a process, which adjusts its production throughput automatically based on recent market trends received from the business intelligence system. Sales processes adjust their current inventory data based on market forecasts triggered by an external supplier. Car manufacturing robots do just-in-time adjustment of assembly line activity after observing a major slump in the stock market five minutes ago. The modern enterprise is event-driven, interconnected, and immediately responsive. However, in order for business processes to exploit this opportunity they need to become self-regulating or “self-aware.” Executable processes must be able to adjust their own complex states based on listeners and triggers from external events. This technology demands sophisticated complex event processing and a meta-process environment, which allows for easy and dynamic reconfiguration of process model layout, design, and performance based on external data. The change in state should not be limited to a pre-configured set of process patterns. Process models and metadata should automatically infer new possible process designs and subsequently select the most plausible design based on previous design choices, feedback, and execution data. 


To Be Continued
These considerations are only a small part of the ideas I have been collecting for next generation process automation, which could very well evolve into a general research programme on the future of BPMS. It is my opinion that we have reached a solid state of enterprise integration tools and middleware platforms. However, BPMS theory and practice is still in a state of flux: shiny new tools emerge every day, but fact is that we have very little experience with designing, deploying, and maintaining complex, large-scale process applications. Granted the general principles of software engineering and IS development theory still apply: effectively, most process applications involve enterprise systems in the large with a vast amount of moving parts and integration points. However, in order to successfully respond to the increasingly rapid markets and requirements change, we need faster, simpler, context-aware, and interconnected BPMS platforms driven by self-regulation and complex event processing. In my upcoming blog posts I will write more on this topic.