Business Process Management Standards Tutorial

Business Process Management Standards Origin, Overview, and Directions

Michael zur Muehlen, Ph.D.

Center of Excellence in Business Process Innovation

Howe School of Technology Management

Stevens Institute of Technology

Hoboken NJ

[email_address]

Private university, founded 1870

1800 undergraduate, 2600 graduate students

Located in Hoboken, NJ (across the Hudson from Manhattan)

Three Schools

Technology Management

Engineering

Arts & Sciences

Rankings:

Top 5 technology management program, on par with Stanford, MIT, CMU, Babson (Optimize Magazine)

#1 for best distance learning program (Princeton Review)

Top 25 for most connected Campus (Sloan Foundation)

http://www.stevens.edu

Offers MBA in Technology Management, Master of Science (IS, Telecom Mgmt, Mgmt, EMTM), Bachelor’s Degree (Business & Technology)

Programs taught on campus and off-site in corporate locations

Clients: ADP, Avaya, BASF, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chubb, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, J&J, Lockheed, Merrill Lynch, PaineWebber, Pearson, Prudential, PSE&G, UBS, UPS, Verizon and others

Research centers with focus on

Process Management

Project Management

Product Innovation

http://howe.stevens.edu

Agenda

Background

Standardization Venues

Current Standardization Efforts

Industry Directions

Research Around Standards

Background

Web Services/SOA idea: Plug & Play applications on top of a standardized infrastructure

Impact of Standards is potentially large

Standards making is risky: Choosing the wrong technology may be counterproductive, incompatible, and lead to lack of adoption

Standards adoption is risky: Choosing the wrong standard may obstruct technology upgrade paths, limit business partner connectivity, and force resource training in (obsolete) technology

 Lack of understanding how the standardization process really works

What’s in a Standard?

Technical Standard: Agreed upon specification for a way of communicating or performing actions.

Internet Standard: Protocols through which people and programs interact over the Internet.

Built on top of TCP/IP, and mostly HTTP

Use of Internet Standards is discretionary:

For developers: Direct choice of which standard to implement

For customers: Indirect choice of which standards-compliant product to use

 User’s vote with their feet, developers with their hands

Inception Phase

Who initiates standards?

Government-sanctioned standardization (e.g. COSO / SOX)

User-initiated standardization (typically vertical)

Vendor-initiated standardization (often horizontal)

Developer-initiated standardization (e.g. first IETF RFPs)

When does a specification emerge?

Industry practice: Develop 80% of specification outside, then submit

Rare: Define charter, then seek out ideas

Unsolicited (IETF) vs. solicited (OMG) specifications

Development Phase

Rules of the organization

Strict procedural and voting rules

Loose cooperation

Virtual vs. physical meetings

Outside input

Openly available drafts vs. closed sessions

Invited experts

Other standards groups

Implementation before ratification

Ratification Phase

Votes

Microsoft OOXML case

Participating vs. voting organizations

Role of the advisory board/steering committee

Form of the specification

Recommendation

Request for Comments

Standard

Validity of the specification

Adoption Phase

Adoption by submitters

Adoption by other companies

Adoption by open source community

Mandatory vs. recommended standards

Check-list compliance vs. usable implementation

Diffusion Phase

Use of standards-compliant products by end users

Presence in the market place

“Management by Magazine”

BPM Standardization

1995

1 standardization group for workflow

Reference model + 5 interface standards

Size of the average specification ~40 pages

2007

10+ working groups with interest in BPM

7+ standards for process models alone

Size of the average specification ~150 pages

World Views - OMG

OMG: Model-driven Architecture

Goal: Specify applications starting with a model of the business context, generate running code from the models

Components in place: OMA, UML, CORBA

Next step: Business Process Definition Meta Model

BPM Experience: CORBA Workflow Facility, BPMN, BPDM

World Views - W3C

W3C: Web Architecture

Goal: Provide protocol stack for application integration over TCP/IP and HTTP

Components in place: SOAP, WSDL, XML

Next step: Web Services Choreography

BPM Experience: none

World Views - OASIS

OASIS: XML-centric standards

Goal: Provide transparent venue for standards that can be used by both vertical and horizontal interest groups

Components in place: ebXML, BPEL

Next step: updated ebXML components, ASAP, WS Resource Model

BPM Experience: workgroup-specific

World Views - WfMC

WfMC: Life-Cycle View of BPM

Goal: Provide integration standards for different phases of the BPM lifecycle

Components in place: Reference model, XPDL, Wf-XML

Next step: Evolve XPDL

BPM Experience: “Grandfathers” of BPM

Origins: WfMC

Black Forest Group Charter

First meetings in 1993

Driven by IBM, FileNet, Staffware

Reference Model

Glossary

Interface Specifications

BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Business Process Management Business Process Automation Business Process Innovation Business Process Monitoring Notation Standard Integration Standards Interaction Standards Standard Metrics Audit Standards

The Workflow Reference Model BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Process Definition Tools Administration & Monitoring Tools Interface 1 Interface 4 Interoperability Interface 5 Workflow Enactment Service Other Workflow Enactment Service(s) Worklist Handler Interface 3 Interface 2 Invoked Applications Tool Agent Process Definition Import/Export Client Apps Workflow Engine(s) Workflow Engine(s) see: www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/tc003v11.pdf Typically Web Services BPMN XPDL Wf-XML SOAP BPEL

Process Design Ecosystem BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Vendor B Vendor C Design Tool Design Tool Modeling Tools Optimization Tools Simulation Tools Execution Engine Execution Engine BPEL or some engine specific format BPEL or some engine specific format Process Repository Vendor A Vendor D ASAP Wf-XML

BPMN 1.1

Mainly cosmetic changes

New symbol for Multiple Event and Gateway (used to be star, now pentagram)

New Signal Event

Separation of “catching” and “throwing” events

Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM)

Designed to supplement BPMN with a formal metamodel of its modeling constructs

BPMN 1.0 did not contain a formal metamodel specification

OMG mindset of MDA is based on multiple levels of metamodels

BPDM replaces efforts to create a UML profile for BPMN

BPDM contains more constructs than BPMN 1.0/1.1

Mapping to MOF and XMI

Envisioned to become persistency format for BPMN

BPMN 2.0 = BPMN + BPDM + possibly other notations

There may be a UML profile for BPDM

SBVR

Semantics of Business, Vocabulary and Rules

Formally defined taxonomy to describe elementary business operations and rules

Metamodel expressed in UML

Business-level specification aims at enterprises to formally express their operations

XPDL: Process Definition Interchange

Allow tools to exchange process models between

components in a Workflow/BPM Products

different BPM/Workflow Products

Process Modeling / Simulation tools and BPM/Workflow Products

Implemented by commercial products

Full support for BPMN 1.0 in XPDL 2.0

Interoperability demonstrated at public events

Support in the Open Source Community

BPEL – Execution Language

BPEL is an “executable” language

Includes only executable operations

Does not contain the graphical diagram

Many Engines have proprietary formats

They have a design tool

Some BPEL engines have proprietary extensions

It is typically not possible to design a process with a tool from one vendor and execute it in another vendor’s engine

But exchange between design tools is possible

BPEL extension for Human Tasks

Source: Agrawal et al. (2007)

ebXML Business Process (ebBP)

Also known as ebXML Business Process Specification Schema(BPSS)

V 2.0.4 released in December 2006

Complements ebXML document definitions, Collaboration Partner Protocols, and Collaboration Partner Agreements

Wf-XML

Interoperability Sematics for Cross-System Business Processes

Successor to Simple Workflow Access Protocol (SWAP)

Based on Asynchronous Service Access Protocol (ASAP)

REST-style Interaction with externally hosted processes (Wf-XML) or long-running services (ASAP)

What is Work?

Consider a process where three activities need to be performed.

But …

The workflow system does not do the work! It only coordinates the work of others.

And ..

The workflow system did not initiate the process, it is merely performing in response

Processes as Services

The BPMS acts as an intermediary

Complete process can be controlled through standardized interfaces

Process can control activities through standardized interfaces

Production Rule Representation

Exchange format for Business Rules (Production Rules)

Defined by Fair Isaac & Co and ILOG

Current revision submitted 09/03/2007

PRR Core defines basic metamodel

PRR OCL defines conditions and actions

Business Motivation Metamodel

Taxonomy to specify goals and objectives of organizational activities and structures

Targeted at business users rather than technical personnel

Provides a vocabulary around goals, means, ends, influencers and related concepts

Intention: To clarify the reasons underlying organizational design decisions

Status: OMG Adopted Specification (dtc/2006-07-01)

Complexity BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Group Standard Year Version Pages W3C WSCL 2002 1.0 22 DAMLSC DAML-S 2002 0.9 26 W3C WSDL 2002 1.2 30 NIST PSL 1998 0.98 32 OASIS ASAP 2003 0.1 34 WfMC Wf-XML 2002 1.1 57 W3C XML 2000 1.0 59 IETF HTTP 1996 1.0 60 IETF FTP 1980 1.0 70 IETF HTML 1995 2.0 70 WfMC XPDL 2003 1.0 87 OMG Wf-Facility 1997 1.0 95 BPMI BPML 2002 1.0 103 IBM WSFL 2001 1.0 108 W3C SOAP 2003 1.2 128 OASIS BPEL 2003 1.1 136 OASIS BPSS 2001 1.01 136 RosettaNet RN Implementation Framework 2002 2.00.01 143 ISO SGML 1986 1.0 155 IETF HTTP 1999 1.1 176 OASIS BTP 2002 1.0 188 OMG UML 2003 1.5 736

BPM and SOA Standardization

Hoboken NJ

[email_address]

No BPM = Monolithic Enterprise Application

Built as a unit, Internals not visible

User Interface built in for all functions

In order to “extend” to a new function, need to call in a programmer...

BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct User Interface Program and Logic Internal Protocols are Proprietary C, C++, Visual Basic, Etc. Swenson (2007)

BPM 1990: Workflow in the Brain BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Background Check Conformance Guidelines Application Logic in Monolithic Program UI “ Screens” Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct Swenson (2007)

BPM 1993: Task Management BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. background check create account check guidelines Launches UI User accesses original UI directly Human BPM/Workflow: Background Check Conformance Guidelines Application Logic in Monolithic Program UI “ Screens” Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct Swenson (2007)

BPM 1996: Workflow Routing BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. background check Launches UI User accesses original UI directly Human BPM/Workflow: Background Check Conformance Guidelines Application Logic in Monolithic Program UI “ Screens” Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct create account check guidelines Swenson (2007)

BPM 2002: Services Integration BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Enter Information Background Check Conformance Rules Application Logic and SOA Services Interfaces Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct Review rules check backgr. check create account UI connects user to BPMS, not the back-end applications Swenson (2007)

BPM 2007: Composite Services BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Enter Information Background Check New Rules Application Logic and SOA Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct Review Check Create account ESB/BPEL Composite Service Swenson (2007)

BPM 2007: Composite Services BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Enter Information Background Check New Rules Application Logic and SOA Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct Review Check Create account ESB/BPEL Composite Services Swenson (2007)

Separation of Responsibility

Business Retains Control of

Assignment of Responsibility

Groups, Roles, Skills

Deadlines

Alerts, Reminders, Escalations

Order of Tasks

Addition of Manual Tasks

User Interface

IT Retains Control of

Computational Logic

Data Representations

Scalability / Performance

Interoperability

Master Data Management

Enter Information Background Check New Rules Enterprise Application “ Account Management” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct Review Check Create account ESB/BPEL Swenson (2007)

Research Around Standards

Hoboken NJ

[email_address]

Research Question

We have tried (unsuccessfully) for more than 12 years to standardize how to coordinate business processes across the Internet. Why are these standards missing?

Individual standard makers are joining, leaving, and generally moving between different standards bodies in sometime random seeming paths

Commercial interest is often deliberately silenced in the development of standards

The prevailing economic models of standard making insufficiently explain the behavior we witnessed

 How can we explain the observed phenomena during the standard making process?

Research Design

Longitudinal Case Study based on public and restricted archival data and participation in standards venues

Detailed Case Analysis of selected Vignettes

IETF Case

W3C Case

Collected observations (events, incidents, significant behavior) from cases (a la process theory)

Evaluated significant observations both from an economic and an ecological perspective

Documented results as conjectures and testing strategies for further work

Data Collection

Extracted participant information from public and members-only standards documents

Protocols from standards meetings 1993-2006

Standards documents

Call sheets

Gathered insight through participation

Went to 20+ standards meetings

Participated in numerous phone conferences

Multiple supplementary interviews (in person and via email)

Standards authors

Standards bodies representatives

Contemporary witnesses

Standardization Venues

Standardization is not standardized

No dominant standards organization that regulates Internet standards (W3C, IETF, OMG, OASIS etc.)

No common set of procedures across different standards bodies (bylaws)

Large areas of domain overlap (both vertically and horizontally)

Government-sanctioned standards organizations often fail, losing power to market consortia [Schoechle 2003]

Cultural clash between design culture striving for “good” architecture and commercial culture striving for quick marketability [Monteiro 1998, zur Muehlen et al. 2005]

The “right” standards body lends legitimacy to an idea [compare Barley and Tolbert 1987]

Vignette 1: WfMC/IETF Episode

Theme: Death of a Standards Group

WfMC members tried to start an IETF working group around process integration

IETF bylaws allow for 2 birds-of-a-feathers meeting

Minutes of the second meeting:

Informal poll: who wants to work on that (very few); something else (slightly more); Lisa Li[ppert] asked if everyone else here was to prevent a WG forming (larger still, but still a minority).

Established IETF members did not condone what they perceived as “Marketing Garbage” – Working Group did not form

Vignette 2: W3C Episode

Theme: Maintaining the Values of an Institution

W3C tried to change its IP licensing schema to RAND licensing

More than 2,000 individuals commented on the proposed change

The policy would discriminate against the poor

The policy undermines the “Spirit of the Web”

The policy would be self-defeating for W3C

The proposal is a conspiracy

The committee reversed their position and produced a Royalty-Free proposal

Standardization Venues BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. IETF OASIS OMG W3C WfMC Entrance Barrier Low ($0) Low-High ($250-45,000) Medium-High ($500-70,0000) Medium-High ($635-63,500) or invitation Medium ($500-5000) or fellowship WG formation 2 BOF + Charter, approval required 3 members, max cycle 30 days Ad hoc, DTC charters topics Only within current W3C activities Ad hoc, TC charters topics Procedural Rules Strict Formal Strict Strict Relaxed IP Rules RAND RAND RAND W3C License Royalty-free license Conceptual Framework Areas None MDA WS Architecture WfMC Reference Model Interest in BPM None Individual WGs BEIDTF + BPMI WS-CDL Focus Implementation Required Yes Yes, not enforced Yes, not enforced Yes No

Explaining Standardization Venues

Standards Bodies are not Companies

They can organize around ideologies

Identity = ideology (beliefs) + legitimacy

Competition forces legitimacy

Standards Bodies are Forums for Design Ideas

Individual contributions shape specifications

Specifications shape attitudes

“ Thought Collectives” reject outside ideas

Working Groups are born, merge, and die

If similar groups exist, new groups emerge easier

Resources are finite

Competition affects cloning

Social Ecology

Phenomena supporting an ecological perspective:

The birth, merger, and death of standards institutions

The creation and survival of institutions depending largely on their legitimacy

Individual actions shaping and shaped by the institutions

Institutional inertia obstructing rapid institutional change and affecting the movement of ideas

Phenomena supporting an economical perspective:

Standards participants joining standards bodies, competing or cooperating based on their perception of market share and market size, their technological competence and their assets

Contrasting Explanations BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Example Economical Explanation Ecological Explanation New industry groups submit their standards to older bodies (for example, IBM et al. submit to OASIS; WfMC submits to IETF) Vendors need a branded standard that will attract more adopters. Vendors migrate to habitats that can confer the greatest legitimacy. A standards effort is rejected by an established institution (for example, IETF prevents the formation of a working group around the WfMC proposal) The institution doesn’t believe the standard will increase market size. The institution is protecting its niche; its criteria for rejection are an expression of its values. Attempts to control IP (for example, the W3C proposal to change IP policy in vendors’ favor) Economic self-interest of vendors favors privately owned IP. Companies will try to protect their niches. Attempts to make IP public (for example, the W3C decision not to change IP policy in vendors’ favor) Shared IP is in the long run better for companies, as it reduces legal costs associated with disputes and expands markets. The Internet emerged as an ecosystem where resources are shared, and this ethos persists.

Conjectures

Working groups in Internet standard making function as a population ecology

Test: Apply Hannan and Freeman’s techniques to the formation of Working Groups at W3C, IETF etc.

Standard makers function as part of an interactional field, in which their actions are interdependent with those of other standard makers

Test: Sequence analysis of standard makers

The bylaws of the standard making bodies are the source of institutional stability in Internet standard making

Test: Study relationship between changes to bylaws and working group formation and dissolution

Thank You – Questions? Michael zur Muehlen, Ph.D. Center of Excellence in Business Process Innovation Howe School of Technology Management Stevens Institute of Technology Castle Point on the Hudson Hoboken, NJ 07030 Phone: +1 (201) 216-8293 Fax: +1 (201) 216-5385 E-mail: [email_address] Web: http://www.cebpi.org