The document discusses how workflow/BPM can bridge the gap between business and IT by separating responsibilities. It describes how workflow allows business users to control process design through a graphical interface, defining tasks, roles, and flows without needing programming skills. This gives organizations business-level agility by making processes responsive to changing needs through rearranging existing "application slices" and integrating human tasks. Standards like BPMN and XPDL further allow processes to be reused and adapted across systems.

1. WfMC Forum Poland 2007 Tutoriel WfMC France 2007 BPM in Practice: Understanding & Implementing BPM Justin Brunt WfMC Vice Chair, Sr. Product Manager TIBCO Ken Mei WfMC External Relations Committee Michael zur Muehlen Professor, Stevens Institute of Technology Nathaniel Palmer WfMC Executive Dire ctor Keith Swenson, Technical Committee Chair, WfMC, VP R&D, Fujitsu Computer Systems

2. Workflow, BPM, & New Enterprise Architecture Keith Swenson Technical Committee Chairman WfMC Vice President of R&D Fujitsu Computer Systems

3. Section Overview Definitions of Terms What is the Gap between Business and IT? Humans vs. System Flow How does Workflow bridge that? Interfacing Humans to Systems What is Business Level Agility?

4. Considering your existing enterprise apps, how important are the following business problems? Source: Forrester Survey of 145 Business and IT decision makers Inadequate support for cross functional processes Mismatch between application functionality and business reqs High cost compared to value Limits on process change due to application inflexibility Lack of visibility and analytic insight into process results Slow upgrade to new functionality Inability to support employees, partner, and customer collaboration Lack of industry specific functionality Inability to extend business processes to external partners

5. A Few Definitions Business Process - A set of one or more linked procedures or activities which collectively realize a business objective or policy goal, normally within the context of an organizational structure defining functional roles and relationships. Workflow - The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules. Ref: WFMC-TC-1011 http://wfmc.org/

6. A Few Definitions Process Definition - The representation of a business process in a form which supports automated manipulation, such as modeling, or enactment by a workflow management system. The process definition consists of a network of activities and their relationships, criteria to indicate the start and termination of the process, and information about the individual activities, such as participants, associated IT applications and data, etc.

7. Relationships of Key Concepts

8. One Last Definition Business Process Management – The practice of developing, running, performance measuring, and simulating Business Processes to effect the continued improvement of those processes. Business Process Management is concerned with the lifecycle of the Process Definition.

9. What is “Human” BPM? Because of all the inconsistent uses of the term “BPM” to mean only invoked web services, we now talk about “Human” BPM to stress the complete picture of both manual & automated activities. Workflow also include the concept of manual & automated activities is used interchangeably with “Human” BPM.

10. Business Run on Processes Finance Sales Marketing Manufacturing Information Technology Accounts Payable and Receivable Billing Dispute Resolution Payroll and Expense Approval Processes Regulatory and Compliance Management Contact and Lead Tracking Proposal Management Contract Management Pipeline Management Advertising and Merchandise Management New Product Introduction Promotions and Deal Management Event Management Order and Vendor Management Product Management and Shipping Customer Service Inventory Control and Supply Chain Management Change and Configuration Management Asset Management Service Desk and Incident Management Application and Security Management

11. Business Processes Are Cross-functional

12. To compete and survive today Organizations must have efficiency Running processes efficiently Utilizing resources efficiently Organizations must have agility Ability to sense environmental changes Ability to respond effectively to those changes Business Process Management is the key Manage processes efficiently Manage resources efficiently Reuse existing assets as much as possible Build and use agile applications Flexibility to adapt to changes

13. People are at the heart of every process Human makes decision based on Experience Knowledge and Rules Availability of relevant information Empowering people is the key to driving process improvement. People in the organization use processes to accomplish their tasks Human-centric BPM is the critical component of achieving competitive advantage

14. What is the Gap Between Business & IT?

15. Business and IT: Two Different Audiences Business IT Concerned with only those goals that can be translated into tested, reliable, secure systems Concerned with business goals both manual & automatable Social structures, working hours, vacation schedules, learning skills, changing positions System structure, 7x24, scalability System to system. platform independence robust & fully automated. User interface, choosing among list of tasks, reassigning, manual handling of exceptional occasions. Change processes in days Change processes in months ? ? ? ? ? ? Legacy CRM ERP Supply Chain Sales Marketing Finance Procurement

16. The Bridge Between Human & System CRM Legacy ERP Supply Chain Sales Marketing Finance Procurement Business IT Enterprise Service Bus Web Service Orchestration Presents the right user interface, to the right person at the right time. Notifies & reminds people Automated activities make calls to the ESB and Composite Services in response to user actions. EAI Composite Services WS-Orchestration Web Services Resources Adapters Forms GUI Roles Assignee Expressions Timers Human BPM / Workflow

17. What is the purpose of BPM / Workflow Place in the hands of business professionals the ability to modify their processes, with no involvement from the IT organization Michael Melenovsky, Gartner ... process changes are made by business professionals who need only limited knowledge of IT systems. In a growing number of cases, changes such as work item routing, business rule overrides, and parametric changes to approval levels, are made in real time to executing process. Janelle Hill, Gartner

18. Where is it Going? By 2009, 20 percent of business processes in the Global 2000 will be supported on BPMS[*]. These processes will be predominantly those that involve a lot of human work, that differentiate the company from its competitors and that are poorly supported by existing IT systems (0.7 probability). Janelle Hill, Gartner * BPMS is defined as a suite that handles both human and system processes.

19. How Does Workflow Bridge the Gap?

20. 1990  Workflow in the Brain Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Check Conformance Guidelines Application Logic in Monolithic Program UI “Screens” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct

21. 1993  Workflow Assist in Sequence Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Check Conformance Rules Application Logic in Monolithic Program UI “ Screens” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct background check create account check guidelines Launches UI User accesses original UI directly Human BPM/Workflow:

22. 1996  Distribute Work Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Check Conformance Rules Application Logic in Monolithic Program UI “ Screens” list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct background check create account check guidelines Launches

23. 2002  Backend converted to Web Services Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Check Conformance Rules Application Logic Service Oriented Architecture Exposed Web Services list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct enter info create account bg check rules Review UI connects user to process engine, not the back-end applications

24. 2005  Composite Services Give IT Agility Old Rules Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background New Rules list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct enter info create account call 1 Review ESB / BPEL Application Logic Exposed Web Services Composite Service

25. 2005  Composite Services Give IT Agility Old Rules Background New Rules list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct enter info create account call 1 Review ESB / BPEL Application Logic Exposed Web Services Composite Services

26. Human Activities Have Three Phases Review Automated phase before to prepare for the task Wait phase for Human to do the work, includes timers and escalation logic Automated phase after to take care of results of the task User Interface (while waiting) Note: this notation is not standard!

27. 2008  Simplify as “Human Steps” Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Conformance Rules Application Logic Exposed Web Services list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct call 1 Review ESB / BPEL enter info Composite Service To People: Looks like two steps! Much simpler.

28. 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 Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Rules list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct ESB / BPEL call 1 Review enter info

29. Separation of Development 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 Depends strongly on who is in each organization. Changes on daily basis Organizational Culture Optimize for each team Respond to market or legislation Related to Training, Experience Requires expensive technical capabilities Very low or no dependence upon the organizational culture Knowledge of infrastructure Who? When? What? How?

30. Human Process Management vs. Enterprise Application Integration

31. EAI BPM Mainly integration or technology driven processes Straight Through Processes Short process duration Projects tend to be driven by IT Humans get involved when there are exceptions Usually less sophisticated human support required

32. Human BPM/Workflow Mainly Human Centric Activities Collaboration between participants May be supported by BPM system May occur outside automated system (direct human interaction) Long process duration Projects tend to be driven by Business Almost always require integration with applications or technologies Integration capabilities usually not as rich as products with origins in EAI

33. Workflow : End user application Workitems To-do list, works to do (personal, role …) Forms represent task Step, workflow activity Forms interaction document attachments, comments Many other interaction Search, caseview …  Users need rich applications

34. Workflow : advanced management Time management Delegate, alarm, overdue, delay, vacation Supervision Team management, Process supervision, exception

35. Workflow : the user within BPM User management Rights, assignment, skills, Organizational structure Task assignment Self-service, workload, distribution, dynamic assignment KO OK OK (Initiator’s) Manager HRD Initiator KO Fill-in the request Approving the vacation request Validating the vacation request Notifying acceptance Notif. Refusal by the manager Notif. Refusal by HRD Notif. Refusal by HRD of an accepted vacation Initiator Initiator Manager Initiator

36. Workflow : also system integration From a workflow perspective, a participant can be a human, an application, a machine, or another process or workflow engine System integration mostly base on point to point connector technology (a participant = 1 application) High document integration (EDMS/ECM) capability

37. Convergence EAI specialists acquire Workflow technology to increase Human capabilities Workflow specialists integrate EAI technology to increase integration/transaction/connector capabilities

38. Convergence has multiple benefits More flexibility for customers Single product applicable for wide range of projects Both ends of the spectrum from Complex integration To Manual intensive More sales opportunities for vendors Target wider range of solutions with potential customers Can foster better collaboration between Business and IT

39. BPM Standards foster convergence BPMN is the widely accepted as standard for describing processes XPDL promotes the exchange of processes between vendors and tool types Modelling and Simulation Process Design and Implementation Process Deployment BAM and Historical Reporting BPEL primarily for execution But gets used for process exchange through extensions BPEL4People may address some problems Several Modelling tool vendors have chosen this route Wf-XML Inter Engine Collaboration

40. Business Level Agility

41. Step 1  Draw Human Process Review enter info First: a business analyst draws the “human” process Business Analyst John

42. Top Down Design: Step 2  Add Integration Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Conformance Rules list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct call 1 Review ESB / BPEL enter info Second: Service Invocation Added by IT Expert IT Integration Expert Robert

43. Agility = Business Driven Change w/o Programming Enterprise Application A “ Account Management” Background Rules list Accts new Acct update Acct delete Acct call 1 Review ESB / BPEL enter info News Flash! Some other bank sued! Need to respond quickly to avoid risk! legal check

44. When done right, successful BPM initiatives (herein referring to projects involving both business process analysis and the implementation of business process management software) change the entire notion of applications, by allowing core systems to respond to process context, rather than driving processes around the limits of technology. Nathanial Palmer, Laura Mooney, 2006

45. Benefit  Business Level Agility Applications are no longer monolithic UI is separated from the back end logic The solution is built from “applications slices” sequenced by Human BPM BPM determines the right person for the right task at the right time. Business analyst is in control of this! Business side can rearrange slices, and add in manual steps quickly

46. Section Summary New structure for enterprise applications Separate “who” & “when” From “what” & “how” Key Benefits: Business Level Control & Agility Visibility: Monitoring & Tracking Reuse & Adapt Standards are key to interoperability BPMN – the graphical notation XPDL – the file format for design interchange

47. Process Thought Leadership