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] 1 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

Stevens Institute of Technology 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

Howe School of Technology Management 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

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Diffusion Adoption Ratification Development Inception

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Diffusion Adoption Ratification Development Inception

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Diffusion Adoption Ratification Development Inception Inception

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Adoption Ratification Development Inception Inception

Diffusion Phase Use of standards-compliant products by end users Presence in the market place “Management by Magazine” BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Diffusion Adoption Ratification Development Inception Inception

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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) BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. Request Purchase Approval Initiate Purchase

Processes as Services The BPMS acts as an intermediary Complete process can be controlled through standardized interfaces Process can control activities through standardized interfaces BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. BPMS

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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) BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 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] 2 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved. 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 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] 3 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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? BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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] BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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 BPM Standards Tutorial © 2007 Michael zur Muehlen. All Rights Reserved.

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

Business Process Management Standards Tutorial

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