The document discusses the challenges of traditional business process (BP) development and promotes an agile approach to overcome these issues by merging modeling, design, and manufacturing. It emphasizes the need for tools that are user-friendly and adaptable to changing processes, exemplified by the shared spaces architecture of an agile communication management system. Additionally, it highlights the importance of understanding user needs and ensuring effective communication within the process framework.

1. Agile process development: why, when
and how
Ilia Bider - IbisSoft/DSV SU
Presentation at BPM 2012: http://bpm2012.ut.ee/program/
Session Innovative BPM Practice
Based on: Process thinking for business agility:
http://bit.ly/Nouub3
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2. Plan of presentation
I. Traditional BP development and problems inherent
to it
II. Agile BP development
III. Requirements on the tools for agile BP
development
IV. Practice
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3. Background
• Own practical experience
• Nonaka theory of knowledge transformation
• Good regulator theorem of Conant and Ashby
“Every Good Regulator of a system must be a model of that system”
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4. I. Traditional approach to BP design
• A good regulator is a model of the
system it regulates
Conant and Ashby
• A good solution is a model of the
problem it solves
• A good key is a model of the lock it
opens
Scholten
• A good process support system is a
model of a process it supports
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5. Risk inherent to …
1. The model does not properly catch the real process
2. The model is not converted to a proper design
3. Support system does not follow the design exactly
4. The new system is not properly understood by the users and it is
rejected or used in the wrong fashion
5. While time goes the process and its context changes
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6. II. What to do – agile approach
A good process support
system is a model of a
process it supports
Modeling design and
manufacturing are
merged in one
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7. What is needed to implement
We can’t do it with Java
Can we?
• A good key is a model of the lock it
opens
• A good process support system is a
model of a process it supports
Modeling design and
manufacturing are
Need a process cutting machine: merged in one
A tool where process modeling is not
strictly differentiated from support
system design and implementation
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8. III Some requirements on the tool
• Be understandable for the team creating the process – no
complicated diagrams and rules
• Even the first draft of a process model should be functional
• No requirements on the order of operations until (and if) they
are known
• Take care on:
 Data
 Documents
 Communication between people
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9. Example: iPB - an ACM based on
shared spaces architecture
• No explicit information/ communication flow
• All information is obtained from the case's shared
space
• All reports are left in the case's shared space
From “In Search of the Holy Grail: Integrating social software with BPM”
http://www.ibissoft.se/publications/HolyGrail.pdf
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10. Structure of shared spaces in iPB
Process shared space – a place
in the “cloud” where each
process participant goes to fetch
information and place the results
Process map – the upper level of
the shared space structure
Step form – the low level of
details of one part of the shared
space
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11. iPB functionality
From “iPB online reference” http://docs.ibissoft.se/node/6
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12. IV. Practice
Social office in the municipality of Jönköping
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13. Answered: Why and How
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14. What about When?
Here
Interplay between different kind of processes
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15. Some references
Googledoc: Process thinking for business agility:
http://bit.ly/Nouub3
iPB online reference http://docs.ibissoft.se/node/6
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16. Thank you for your attention!
Ilia Bider, DSV SU/IbisSoft
Email: ilia@dsv.su.se
ilia@ibissoft.se
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