architecting a business process environment

Sandy Kemsley l www.column2.com l @skemsley

Architecting A Business

Process Environment

Aligning BPM and EA

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

2Copyright Kemsley Design Ltd., 2011

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

Copyright Kemsley Design Ltd., 2011 5

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

TOGAFCopyright Kemsley Design Ltd., 2011 7

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 planningl Describe current and future state of the

structure of an enterprise

l Business-IT alignmentl Links between business/technology artefacts

l Business visibility and measurement

l Change-friendly capability deliveryl 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 Efficiencyl Automating steps and handoffs

l Integrating systems and data sources

l Compliancel Achieving and proving standardization

l Agilityl Changing processes quickly and easily

l Visibilityl See what’s happening in a process

Overlapping, Not Concentric

EA

• Strategy

• Targets

• Models

BPM

• Models

• Execution

• Metrics


Linking EA and BPM

l Connect EA strategy and BPM execution

tacticsl 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 modelsl Functional flow between people and systems

l Organizational modelsl Roles, skills, hierarchy

l Data modelsl Information structures shared by systems



Goals and Performance Indicators

l EA creates targets for business

measurementl Future state models

l Requirements and principles

l BPM feeds back metrics to assess EA

targetsl 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 EAl 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


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

A Taxonomy Of EA Models

(Zachman)


Data

(What)

Function

(How)

Network

(Where)

People

(Who)

Time

(When)

Motivation

(Why)

Scope List of Things List of

Processes

List of

Locations

List of

Organizations

List of Cycles List of Goals

Business

Model

Business

Entity Model

Business

Process

Model

Business

Network

Model

Business

Workflow

Model

Business

Event Model

Business

Strategy

Model

System

Model

Logical Data

Model

System

Process

Model

System

Network

Model

Human

Interface

Architecture

System Event

Diagram

Business

Rule Model

Technology

Model

Physical

Data Model

Application

Structure

Chart

Network

Technology

Model

Presentation

Architecture

Technology

Event

Diagram

Rule Design

Model

Components Data

Components

Program

Components

Network

Components

Interface

Components

Event

Components

Rule

Specifications

Interrelated Model Types

l Process models

l Organizational models

l Data models

l Security models

l Event models

l Rules models


Process

Data

Organization

SecurityRules

Events

Linking Process and Data Models

l Process activities require data input/outputl Information presented to or gathered from

person

l Data passed to or from automated service

l Process design includes process instance

data modell 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 rulesl 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 processl 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 EAl Strategy: processes linked to business

motivation and strategies

l BPMl 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

Source: http://bpmb.de/poster

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 personasl Business user

l Business analyst

l Architect/developer

l Each level adds more detail to model

SIMPLE

sequenceFlow

Task (none)

subProcess(embed)

exclusiveGateway

parallelGateway

startEvent (none)

endEvent (none)

DESCRIPTIVE

Pool

Lane

messageFlow

userTask

serviceTask

Re-Usable subProcess

dataObject

dataInput

dataOutput

textAnnotation

Association

dataAssociation

dataStore

messageStartEvent

messageEndEvent

timerStartEvent

terminateEndEvent

DODAF

Plus 29 elements

COMPLETE

Plus 50 elements

BPMN 2.0 Subclasses:

Early Version

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

BPMN 2.0 Conformance

Subclasses

l Descriptivel Visible elements for high-level models

l Used by business analysts

l Analyticl All of Descriptive plus elements for DoDAF

enterprise architecture models

l Common Executablel All of analytic plus elements for executable

models

Descriptive Subclass

l participant (pool)

l laneSet

l sequenceFlow (unconditional)

l messageFlow

l exclusiveGateway

l parallelGateway

l task (None)

l userTask

l serviceTask

l subProcess (expanded)

l subProcess (collapsed)

l callActivity

l dataObject

l textAnnotation

l association/dataAssociation

l dataStoreReference

l startEvent (None)

l endEvent (None)

l messageStartEvent

l messageEndEvent

l timerStartEvent

l terminateEndEvent

l documentation

l group

Pool

Lane

Message

Flow

Message

Start Event

Message

End Event

User

Task

Data

ObjectSub

Process(Collapsed)

Service

Task

Data

Association

Call

Activity(Collapsed)

Text

AnnotationAssociation


Descriptive Subclass Example


Data

Store

Descriptive Subclass Example

Analytic Subclassl sequenceFlow

(conditional)

l sequenceFlow (default)

l sendTask

l receiveTask

l Looping Activity

l MultiInstance Activity

l exclusiveGateway

l inclusiveGateway

l eventBasedGateway

l signalStartEvent

l signalEndEvent

l errorEndEvent

l message

l Plus: Intermediate

events

Analytic Subclass: Intermediate

Eventsl Catching message

l Throwing message

l Boundary message

l Non-interrupting

Boundary message

l Catching timer

l Boundary timer

l Non-interrupting

Boundary timer

l Boundary error

l Non-interrupting

Boundary escalation

l Throwing escalation

l escalationEndEvent

l Catching signal

l Throwing signal

l Boundary signal

l Non-interrupting

Boundary signal

l condtionalStartEvent

l Catching conditional

l Boundary conditional

l Non-interrupting

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 Synergiesl Participants

l Activities

l Models

l Goals

l Model types and interactions

l Using BPMN for process modelling


Questions?

Sandy Kemsley

Kemsley Design Ltd.

email: [email protected]

blog: www.column2.com

twitter: @skemsley
