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The Role of Standards in BPM Sandy Kemsley Kemsley Design Ltd. www.column2.com

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Agenda <ul><li>Risks and rewards </li></ul><ul><li>Process standards landscape </li></ul><ul><li>Graphical notation standards </li></ul><ul><li>Serialization standards </li></ul><ul><li>The future of standards </li></ul>

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Risks and Rewards Why use a standard? Why not?

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Value of Standards: Business <ul><li>Commoditization of technology and services </li></ul><ul><li>Portability between modeling tools </li></ul><ul><li>Reduces ambiguity of process models </li></ul>

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Value of Standards: Business-IT Alignment <ul><li>Unbroken, bidirectional modeling-interchange-execution chain </li></ul><ul><li>Reduces translation errors between business and IT </li></ul><ul><li>Less time spent by business analysts teaching IT about business processes </li></ul><ul><li>IT time spent just cleaning up processes and hooking them up to the process engine </li></ul>

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Value of Standards: Collaboration <ul><li>Choreograph processes with partners </li></ul><ul><li>Share business models in community </li></ul><ul><li>Outsource business processes: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Process modeling and execution may be done by different organizations </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Runtime statistics feed back for process visibility and optimization against original models </li></ul></ul>

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Standards Risks <ul><li>Little value in being an early adopter of standards </li></ul><ul><li>Risks in choosing the wrong standard: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Obstructs technology upgrades </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Limits business partner connectivity </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Forces training in obsolete technology </li></ul></ul>

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How Standards Are Selected <ul><li>Application/platform developers choose standards directly </li></ul><ul><li>Customers choose standards indirectly by selecting standards-compliant products </li></ul>

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Process Standards Landscape Who’s doing what?

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Source: 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

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Process Standards <ul><li>BPMN = Business Process Modeling Notation </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Standard graphical notation </li></ul></ul><ul><li>XPDL = XML Process Definition Language </li></ul><ul><ul><li>De facto standard interchange format </li></ul></ul><ul><li>BPDM = Business Process Definition Metamodel </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Too soon to tell; may overtake XPDL as standard interchange format </li></ul></ul><ul><li>BPEL = Business Process Execution Language </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Execution language for some BPMS </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Primarily used as integration/SOA interchange format </li></ul></ul>

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Related Standards <ul><li>SVBR: Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules </li></ul><ul><li>ebXML BPSS (ebBP): Business Process Specification Schema </li></ul><ul><li>BPRI: Business Process Runtime Interface </li></ul><ul><li>UML: Unified Modeling Language </li></ul><ul><li>WS-CDL: Web Services Choreography Description Language </li></ul>

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Process Standards Organizations <ul><li>OMG - www.omg.org </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Object Management Group </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Standards for interoperable enterprise applications </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Absorbed BPMI in 2005 </li></ul></ul><ul><li>WfMC - www.wfmc.org </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Workflow Management Coalition </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Workflow standards for terminology, interoperability and connectivity </li></ul></ul><ul><li>OASIS - www.oasis-open.org </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>E-business standards </li></ul></ul>

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OMG <ul><li>Model-driven architecture </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Start with model of business </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Auto-generate code from model </li></ul></ul><ul><li>BPMN (through acquisition) </li></ul><ul><li>BPDM next </li></ul>

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WfMC <ul><li>Integration standards for process life cycle </li></ul><ul><li>Reference model + XPDL </li></ul><ul><li>Started in 1993 </li></ul>

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OASIS <ul><li>Workgroup-specific BPM knowledge </li></ul><ul><li>ebXML, BPEL </li></ul>

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W3C <ul><li>Protocol stack standards for application integration </li></ul><ul><li>WS-CDL </li></ul><ul><li>No BPM experience </li></ul>

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OMG & Process Standards Copyright Object Management Group 2006

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OMG & Process Standards Copyright Object Management Group 2006

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WfMC & Process Standards XPDL 2.00 standard WFMC-TC-1025. Copyright Workflow Management Coalition 2006.

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OASIS & Process Standards Published with permission of the author

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The Problem with Process Standards <ul><li>Several overlapping and competing standards </li></ul><ul><li>Multiple standards organizations </li></ul><ul><li>Different views of how standards fit together </li></ul>

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Graphical Notation Standards Drawing a pretty – and standard – picture

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Graphical notation standard: BPMN <ul><li>Diagramming standard for drawing business processes </li></ul><ul><li>Method of communicating processes: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Understandable by business users and unambiguous </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Reduces translation errors between business and IT </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Easy transition between tools </li></ul>

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From the BPMN Charter <ul><li>Usable by the business community: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Minimum technical constraints on business user/analyst </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Supports only the concepts of modeling that are applicable to business processes </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Useful in illuminating a complex executable process </li></ul><ul><li>Produce unambiguous notation of a business process </li></ul><ul><li>Allow direct mapping from BPMN to BPEL </li></ul>

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BPMN Issues <ul><li>No serialization/file format </li></ul><ul><li>No user/role modeling </li></ul><ul><li>No data modeling </li></ul><ul><li>No KPI modeling </li></ul><ul><li>Methodology-independent </li></ul>

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BPMN History <ul><li>BPMN 0.9 draft by BPMI, 2002 </li></ul><ul><li>BPMN 1.0 draft, 2003 </li></ul><ul><li>BPMN 1.0, 2004 </li></ul><ul><li>BPMI merged into OMG, 2005 </li></ul><ul><li>BPMN 1.0 as OMG spec, 2006 </li></ul><ul><li>BPMN 1.1, 2007 </li></ul>

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BPMN Flow Objects <ul><li>Event </li></ul><ul><li>Activity </li></ul><ul><li>Gateway </li></ul>

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BPMN Connecting Objects <ul><li>Sequence flow </li></ul><ul><li>Message flow </li></ul><ul><li>Association </li></ul>

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BPMN Swimlanes <ul><li>Pool </li></ul><ul><li>Lanes </li></ul>

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BPMN Artifacts <ul><li>Data object </li></ul><ul><li>Group </li></ul><ul><li>Annotation </li></ul>

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Exception Handling

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Transaction

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Events None n/a n/a Terminate Multiple Link n/a Rule n/a Compensation n/a Cancel n/a Error n/a Timer Message End Intermediate Start

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Activities Expanded sub-process Collapsed sub-process Task (atomic)

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Other Activity Markers Ad hoc sub-process Compensation Multiple instances Activity looping

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Gateways Parallel (AND) Complex Inclusive (OR) Exclusive or (XOR), event-based Exclusive or (XOR), data-based

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Sequence Flows Exception flow Default flow Conditional flow Uncontrolled flow Normal flow

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Associations Compensation association

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Multiple Collapsed Pools for B2B Modeling

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Multiple Expanded Pools

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Grouping Across Pools

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BPMN Patterns – Data Objects Data objects as inputs and outputs Data object associated with sequence flow

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Interchange Standards How processes get around

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BPM interchange standards <ul><li>Import/export of process models </li></ul><ul><li>Evolving landscape of standards: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>XPDL (XML Process Definition Language) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>BPDM (Business Process Definition Metamodel) </li></ul></ul>

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XPDL <ul><li>Process definition serialization and interchange format </li></ul><ul><li>Maintains spatial information </li></ul><ul><li>Multiple processes per file </li></ul><ul><li>Allows vendor-specific extensions </li></ul><ul><li>Includes user interactions </li></ul>

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XPDL <ul><li>Interchange format for business process definitions </li></ul><ul><li>Defines how a process definition is serialized (written to a file) </li></ul><ul><li>Maintains graphical positional information </li></ul><ul><li>Multiple processes/subprocesses per file </li></ul>

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XPDL <ul><li>Includes user interactions </li></ul><ul><li>Does not include choreography </li></ul><ul><li>Allows vendor-specific extensions </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Created by modeling tool or process engine </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Ignored by other modeling tools and process engines </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>E.g., colored swimlanes </li></ul></ul>

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XPDL History <ul><li>Developed by WfMC, www.wfmc.org </li></ul><ul><li>WPDL (Workflow Process Definition Language), 1998 </li></ul><ul><li>XPDL 1.0, 2002 </li></ul><ul><li>XPDL 2.0, 2005 </li></ul><ul><li>Supported by 70+ modeling/BPM products </li></ul>

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BPDM <ul><li>Process definition serialization and interchange format </li></ul><ul><li>Includes choreography </li></ul><ul><li>Will become part of BPMN in future version </li></ul><ul><li>May displace XPDL </li></ul>

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BPDM <ul><li>Can serve as metamodel for BPMN </li></ul><ul><li>Metamodel can be used to generate an interchange format </li></ul><ul><ul><li>May (attempt to) displace XPDL </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Larger scope/more robust than XPDL </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>XPDL has 2-year head start </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Includes choreography and orchestration </li></ul>

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BPDM History <ul><li>Developed by OMG, www.omg.org </li></ul><ul><li>RFP issued, 2003 </li></ul><ul><li>BPDM 1.0, 2007 </li></ul>

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BPEL <ul><li>Web services orchestration language </li></ul><ul><ul><li>In BPM, may be used as interchange format </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>In SOA-related products, also used as execution language </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Programming language for integration logic and process automation between services </li></ul><ul><li>Defines business processes as coordinated sets of Web service interactions </li></ul><ul><ul><li>BPEL processes exposed as WSDL services </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>BPEL processes consume WSDL services </li></ul></ul>

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BPEL Issues <ul><li>Does not include some BPMN functionality: </li></ul><ul><ul><li>Human interaction </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Interleaved process segments </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Looping back to previous steps </li></ul></ul><ul><ul><li>Subprocessess </li></ul></ul><ul><li>Does not include graphical layout info </li></ul><ul><li>Not fully interoperable between vendors </li></ul>

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BPEL History <ul><li>Developed by OASIS, www.oasis-open.org </li></ul><ul><li>BPEL4WS 1.0, 2002 </li></ul><ul><li>BPEL4WS 1.1 proposed to OASIS, 2003 </li></ul><ul><li>WS-BPEL 2.0 draft, 2005 </li></ul>

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The Future of Process Standards

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BPMN and BPDM <ul><li>BPMN will remain the primary graphical modeling notation </li></ul><ul><li>BPDM may eventually overtake XPDL as interchange/serialization standard </li></ul><ul><li>BPMN 2.0 will merge BPDM and BPMN 1.1 </li></ul>

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XPDL <ul><li>XPDL as interchange/serialization standard for at least the short term </li></ul>

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BPEL <ul><li>BPEL may become more important as an interchange standard for SOA/integration than as an execution language </li></ul><ul><li>BPEL4People (human interactions) specification under development </li></ul>

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Questions? Sandy Kemsley Kemsley Design Ltd. www.column2.com