Architecting a Business Process Environment

Architecting A Business
Process Environment
Aligning BPM and EA

Sandy Kemsley l www.column2.com l @skemsley

My History in BPM
l Mid-late 80’s: from satellite imaging to
document imaging to workflow
l Early 90’s: desktop imaging/workflow
product
l Mid-late 90’s: integrate imaging, workflow,
EAI and e-commerce systems
l 2000-1: FileNet (now IBM) BPM evangelist
l 2002-now: process architect and BPM
industry analyst
Copyright Kemsley Design Ltd., 2011 2

My BPM Calling Card
l Column2.com: “a blog about BPM,
Enterprise 2.0 and technology trends in
business”
l Community of up to 3,000/day
l Best known for:
l Conference blogging
l Product reviews
l Independent opinions


Agenda
l What is Enterprise Architecture?
l What is Business Process Management?
l EA-BPM Relationships and Synergies
l Model Types and Interactions
l Using BPMN 2.0 (Business Process Model
and Notation)


Definitions, Synergies and
Benefits

What is EA?
EA is the process of translating business vision
and strategy into effective organizational change
by creating, communicating and improving the key
requirements, principles and models that describe
the organization’s future state and enable its
evolution.

Gartner


What Is EA?
1. A formal description of a system, or a
detailed plan of the system at a
component level to guide its
implementation
- OR -
2. The structure of components, their inter-
relationships, and the principles and
guidelines governing their design and
evolution over time
TOGAF

What Is EA?
An architectural discipline that merges
strategic business and IT objectives with
opportunities for change and governs the
resulting change initiatives
IBM


EA Defined
l Strategy (evolutionary path) to achieve
desired business future state
l Artefacts for documenting and
communicating strategy
l Many methodologies/frameworks: may be
a process, a taxonomy or a practice


EA Goals
l Enterprise planning
l Describe current and future state of the
structure of an enterprise

l Business-IT alignment
l Links between business/technology artefacts
l Business visibility and measurement

l Change-friendly capability delivery
l Adaptable and agile for continuous change


What is BPM?
BPM is a management discipline that treats
processes as assets that directly contribute to
enterprise performance by driving operational
excellence and business process agility.
BPM employs methods, policies, metrics,
management practices and software tools to
continuously optimize the organization’s
processes to improve business performance
against goals and objectives
Gartner


BPM Defined
l A management discipline for improving
cross-functional business processes
l The methods and technology tools used to
manage and optimize business processes


BPM Goals
l Efficiency
l Automating steps and handoffs
l Integrating systems and data sources
l Compliance
l Achieving and proving standardization
l Agility
l Changing processes quickly and easily
l Visibility
l See what’s happening in a process


Overlapping, Not Concentric

EA BPM
• Strategy • Models
• Targets • Execution
• Models • Metrics


Linking EA and BPM
l Connect EA strategy and BPM execution
tactics
l EA shows what needs to be done to get from
strategy to execution
l BPM is an accelerator that turns EA concepts
into BPM initiatives to facilitate that goal

l Natural synergy from planning to solution
delivery


Sharing Between EA and BPM:
Participants
l Chief architect
l Business architect
l Process architect
l Each needs to participate in both EA team
and BPM center of excellence (CoE)


Activities
l End-to-end enterprise process modelling
l Conceptual and logical process design
l Establish process standards
l Establish and maintain artefact repository


Key Models
l Process models
l Functional flow between people and systems

l Organizational models
l Roles, skills, hierarchy

l Data models
l Information structures shared by systems


Goals and Performance Indicators
l EA creates targets for business
measurement
l Future state models
l Requirements and principles

l BPM feeds back metrics to assess EA
targets
l Inform and improve planning with actual
performance data


EA-BPM Additional Benefits
l EA helps BPM to evolve from a project to a
centre of excellence (CoE)
l Widen scope to holistic end-to-end processes
l Sharing of resources, artefacts and repositories
l Encourage governance and standards

l BPM encourages process thinking in EA
l Focus on end-to-end processes
l Push for service-oriented architecture


EA and BPM: Better Together

From IBM White Paper: “Continuous improvement with BPM and EA Together”

Separation of Concerns
l Scheduling:
l Enterprise planning versus solution delivery
l Ongoing activities versus project-specific

l Artefacts:
l Suitability for planning versus design
l Shared versus one-way translation versus bi-
directional round-trip
l Usability for different audiences


Model Types And Interactions


Horizontal and Vertical Model
Alignment
l Linking process models to other model
types in a taxonomy:
l Data
l Organizational
l Security
l Rules
l Events

l Process models: levels and usages


From IBM White Paper: “Continuous Ltd., 2011
Copyright Kemsley Design improvement with BPM and EA Together” 25

A Taxonomy Of EA Models
(Zachman)
Data Function Network People Time Motivation
(What) (How) (Where) (Who) (When) (Why)
Scope List of Things List of List of List of List of Cycles List of Goals
Processes Locations Organizations

Business Business Business Business Business Business Business
Model Entity Model Process Network Workflow Event Model Strategy
Model Model Model Model
System Logical Data System System Human System Event Business
Model Model Process Network Interface Diagram Rule Model
Model Model Architecture
Technology Physical Application Network Presentation Technology Rule Design
Model Data Model Structure Technology Architecture Event Model
Chart Model Diagram
Components Data Program Network Interface Event Rule
Components Components Components Components Components Specifications


Interrelated Model Types
l Process models Data

l Organizational models
l Data models Events Organization

l Security models Process

l Event models
l Rules models Rules Security


Linking Process and Data Models
l Process activities require data input/output
l Information presented to or gathered from
person
l Data passed to or from automated service

l Process design includes process instance
data model
l Subset of enterprise data model


Linking Process, Organizational
and Security Models
l Process activities require specific skills or
security access levels
l Process activities assigned to roles
l Process activities may use implied
organizational hierarchy


Linking Process and Rule Models
l Process decisions represent business rules
l Branching/routing decisions
l Data validation
l Get/set data values

l Rules can be externalized as decision
services, or inherent in process model


Linking Process and Event
Models
l Events are external actions (information or
control) that impact that process
l Event triggers a process
l Process triggers an event
l Event interrupts or diverts process

l Events increase process responsiveness to
changing conditions


Process Model Levels
l EA
l Strategy: processes linked to business
motivation and strategies

l BPM
l Documentation: implementation-independent
models for as-is/to-be analysis
l Implementation: model-driven design in a BPM
system (BPMS)


Different Perspectives on Process
Models
l Different modelling tools:
l Process modelling in EA tool
l Standalone business process analysis (BPA)
tool
l Visio and other unstructured environments
l Business perspective in BPMS tool
l Technical/design perspective in BPMS tool

l Translations between perspectives and
tools


BPMN 2.0 In Practice


Why BPMN?
l OMG-supported standard
l Support by many tool vendors
l Training and certification programs
l Ongoing enhancements in BPMN 2.0:
l Advanced event modelling
l Serialization for model interchange
l Execution semantics


BPMN: The Rosetta Stone of
Process
l Enables
communication
between different
audiences:
l Business users
l Business analysts
l Technical
implementers


BPMN Is Simple...
l Activity

l Gateway

l Event

l Data

The BPMN 2.0 Problem
l More than 100 elements
l Unlikely to be fully understood by most
experts, much less users
l Unlikely to be fully supported by most
vendors
l Has led to rejection of BPMN in favor of
“simpler” modeling paradigms

Source: M. zur Muehlen,
Stevens Institute of
Technology


The BPMN 2.0 Solution
l Not everyone needs to learn everything
l Group BPMN elements into sets used by
different personas
l Business user
l Business analyst
l Architect/developer

l Each level adds more detail to model

BPMN 2.0 Subclasses:
Early Version
COMPLETE
DODAF
DESCRIPTIVE
Plus 50 elements
SIMPLE Plus 29 elements
Pool
sequenceFlow Lane
Task (none) messageFlow
subProcess(embed) userTask
exclusiveGateway serviceTask
parallelGateway Re-Usable subProcess
startEvent (none) dataObject
endEvent (none) dataInput
dataOutput
textAnnotation
Association
dataAssociation
dataStore
messageStartEvent
messageEndEvent
timerStartEvent
terminateEndEvent

Source: Workflow Management Coalition’s “Update on BPMN Release 2.0”

BPMN 2.0 Conformance
Subclasses
l Descriptive
l Visible elements for high-level models
l Used by business analysts

l Analytic
l All of Descriptive plus elements for DoDAF
enterprise architecture models

l Common Executable
l All of analytic plus elements for executable
models

Descriptive Subclass
l dataObject
l participant (pool) l textAnnotation
l laneSet l association/dataAssociation
l sequenceFlow (unconditional) l dataStoreReference
l messageFlow l startEvent (None)
l exclusiveGateway l endEvent (None)
l parallelGateway l messageStartEvent
l task (None) l messageEndEvent
l userTask l timerStartEvent
l serviceTask l terminateEndEvent
l subProcess (expanded) l documentation
l subProcess (collapsed) l group
l callActivity


Descriptive Subclass Example

Pool
Message
Flow
Data Sub
User
Object Process Lane
Task (Collapsed)

Message
Start Event

Message
End Event
Data
Association

Call
Activity
(Collapsed)
Service
Text Task
Annotation
Association

Descriptive Subclass Example

Data
Store


Analytic Subclass
l sequenceFlow l eventBasedGateway
(conditional) l signalStartEvent
l sequenceFlow (default) l signalEndEvent
l sendTask l errorEndEvent
l receiveTask l message
l Looping Activity
l MultiInstance Activity l Plus: Intermediate
l exclusiveGateway events
l inclusiveGateway

Analytic Subclass: Intermediate
Events
l Catching message l Throwing escalation
l Throwing message l escalationEndEvent
l Boundary message l Catching signal
l Non-interrupting l Throwing signal
Boundary message l Boundary signal
l Catching timer l Non-interrupting
l Boundary timer Boundary signal
l Non-interrupting l condtionalStartEvent
Boundary timer l Catching conditional
l Boundary error l Boundary conditional
l Non-interrupting l Non-interrupting
Boundary escalation Boundary conditional

The Analyst’s Dilemma
l Descriptive is a manageable subset
l Analytic is too much, except for serious
process experts
l Some of the event concepts in analytic
subset are required for analysis and
modeling

Modeling Events In Processes


Example: Event-Driven Financial
Process
l Scenario: loan origination documents
l Customer documents created or gathered
in front office
l Transactions created by front office
l Back office verifies documents against
transactions


Event-Driven Process


What Do Business Users Really
Need?
l Smaller subset of elements (?)
l Depends on user skills/aptitude

l Comprehension of BPMN without
necessarily being able to model:
l Work with analysts to capture processes
l Review and approve models, with a cheat sheet
or generous annotation

A Hierarchy Of Process Models
l Different perspectives from EA to BPM:
l Milestones: major phases
l Handoffs: transitions between roles and organizations
l Decisions: major decision points and exception paths
l Procedures: requirements-level view of process

(zur Muehlen on BEA and DoDAF)


Summary


BPM In An EA Context
l Defining BPM and EA
l Synergies
l Participants
l Activities
l Models
l Goals

l Model types and interactions
l Using BPMN for process modelling


Sandy Kemsley
Kemsley Design Ltd.
email: sandy@kemsleydesign.com
blog: www.column2.com
twitter: @skemsley

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Architecting a Business Process Environment

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