bpm standards: an overview

Michael zur Muehlen, Ph.D.Center of Excellence in Business Process InnovationHowe School of Technology ManagementStevens Institute of TechnologyHoboken [email protected]

Business Process Management StandardsAn Overview

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mailto:[email protected]


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Private university, founded 1870‣ 1800 undergraduate, 2600 graduate students‣ Located in Hoboken, NJ

Four Schools‣ Technology Management‣ Engineering‣ Systems and Enterprises‣ 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://howe.stevens.edu

http://www.stevens.edu/

http://www.stevens.edu/

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‣ BPM Education Offerings‣ Graduate Certificate (Online/On-site/On Campus)

‣ Master’s Degree in Information Systems

‣ Executive Education

‣ BPM Research Activities‣ Modeling in the Large

‣ Management of BPM Projects

‣ Integration of Process and Rule Modeling

‣ Standards & Social Networks

‣ Next Generation BPM Technology

http://howe.stevens.edu/BPM

http://howe.stevens.edu/

http://howe.stevens.edu/

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Agenda

What are BPM Standards?

Modeling Standards?

Which Standards affect us?

What will happen next?

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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 most standards is discretionary:Developers: Direct choice of which standard to implement

Customers: Indirect choice of which standards-compliant product to use

User’s vote with their feet, developers with their hands

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Why Should We Care?Potentially large impact of Standards

Standards making is risky: Choosing the wrong technology may be counterproductive, incompatible, and lead to lack of adoptionSubmitters open their technology to external review

Standards adoption is risky: Choosing the wrong standard may obstruct technology upgrade paths, limit business partner connectivity, and force resource training in (obsolete) technologyJust ask anybody with an HD-DVD Player

Compatible?

Compatibility between:

Different Standards

Different Versions of the same Standard

Different Implementations of the same Standard

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DiffusionAdoption

Standardization Phases

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RatificationDevelopmentInception

Inception Phase

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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

DiffusionAdoptionRatificationDevelopmentInception

Development Phase

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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

DiffusionAdoptionRatificationDevelopmentInception

Standardization Phases

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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

DiffusionAdoptionRatificationDevelopmentInceptionInception

Diffusion

Adoption Phase

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Adoption by submitters

Adoption by other companies

Adoption by open source community

Mandatory vs. recommended standards

Check-list compliance vs. usable implementation

AdoptionRatificationDevelopmentInceptionInception

Diffusion Phase

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Use of standards-compliant products by end users

Presence in the market place

“Management by Magazine”

DiffusionAdoptionRatificationDevelopmentInceptionInception

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Business Process Management

Business Process Automation

Business Process Innovation

Business Process Monitoring

NotationStandard

Integration Standards

InteractionStandards

StandardMetrics

AuditStandards

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Modeling Standards

The Interoperability ProblemThe Process Analyst:

has identified the best tool for modeling the business processes.

is building a large library of processes.

The Development Team:has identified the best tool to implement such applications.are trained and experienced on it.

These tools use incompatible formats!

What is BPMN?Graphical Notation for Describing Business Processes

The “Look” of a process diagram

Flowchart based

Activity Network – Nodes and transitions

Sequential, Parallel and Conditional Paths

Arbitrarily complex diagrams

The BPMN will provide businesses with the capability of defining and understanding their internal and external business procedures through a Business Process Diagram, which will give organizations the ability to communicate these procedures in a standardized manner.

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Uses of BPMNTargeted at creating different types of Business Processes

Allows the creation of end-to-end business processes

Three basic types of sub-model within an end-to-end BPMN Model

Private (Internal) Business Processes

Internal to a specific organization

Abstract (Public) Processes

Represents interaction between a private business process and another process or participant

Only activities used to communicate outside the private business process are included

Collaboration (Global) Processes

Represents interactions between two or more entities

Sequence of activities representing message exchange between entities 18

BPMN 1.1

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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

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Practical Use of BPMN Symbols

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BPMN Working Group22

Process Design EcosystemThere will be an ecosystem of process tools at the design level

Business oriented and developer oriented modelers

Simulation tools & optimization tools

Analysis tools

Professional business modeling tools

Conversions to/from other formats like Visio

Need a standard interchange format between these tools

But tools have special capabilities

May not be supported by all tools

Tools can understand a common subset of each other

All tools understand the basics; the graphical diagram

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Standards enable Interaction

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Vendor FVendor E

SOA DesignWorkflow Design

Vendor C Vendor DVendor BVendor A

Process Risk Mgmt Process Simulation

Process Execution

Process Modeling

Process Model Repository

Process Optimization

Process Execution

Executable Model Repository (e.g. BPEL)

Executable Model Repository (e.g. BPEL)

Process Integration

Limited PortabilityXPeople Integration

Runtime Interaction

(e.g. Service Choreography)

e.g. Focus on human-centric

processes

e.g. Focus on technical

processes

Process D

eploym

ent (typically one-w

ay)Needs Risk/Control

InformationNeeds Ownership/Issue Information

Needs Resources/Time Information Needs Goals

Tool- specific

Capabilities

User Needs

Process Structure is shared by all

tools

Execution environments have different strengths, no

model exchange at this level

Design vs. Executable Format

BPM Engines have proprietary executable formats

Unique requirement on execution environment

Custom design tool understands this requirement

Even BPEL engines have proprietary extensions

It is generally NOT possible to:Exchange executable formats between engines

But exchange between design tools is possible

XPDL

is a design interchange format

represents the graphical diagram

includes metadata about executable aspects

80% to 95% of semantics will translate

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Interoperability Standards

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

RequestPurchase

Approval

Initiate Purchase

Process and Activity Decomposition

RequestPurchase

Approval

Initiate Purchase

PurchaseSupplies

Processes as Services

The BPMS acts as an intermediary

Complete process can be controlled through standardized interfaces

Process can control activities through standardized interfaces

BPMS

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Tight Coupling

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Loose Coupling (REST)

Wf-XMLInteroperability 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)

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ProcessDefinition Tools

Administration & Monitoring Tools

Interface 1

Interface 4 Interoperability

Interface 5Workflow Enactment Service Other Workflow

Enactment Service(s)

WorklistHandler

Interface 3Interface 2

InvokedApplications

Tool Agent

Process Definition Import/Export

WorkflowEngine(s) Workflow

Engine(s)

see: www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/tc003v11.pdf

The Workflow Reference Model

ClientApps

ProcessDefinition Tools

Administration & Monitoring Tools

Interface 1

Interface 4 Interoperability

Interface 5Workflow Enactment Service Other Workflow

Enactment Service(s)

WorklistHandler

Interface 3Interface 2

InvokedApplications

Tool Agent

Process Definition Import/Export

WorkflowEngine(s) Workflow

Engine(s)

see: www.wfmc.org/standards/docs/tc003v11.pdf

TypicallyWeb Services

BPMN

XPDL

Wf-XML

SOAP

BPEL

The Workflow Reference Model

ClientApps

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Integration Standards

No BPM = Monolithic Enterprise Application

Enterprise Application “Account Management”

listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

User Interface

Program and Logic

Internal Protocols are Proprietary C, C++, Visual Basic, Etc.

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...

Swenson (2007)

BPM 1990: Workflow in the Brain

Background Check

Conform

ance Guidelines

ApplicationLogic in

MonolithicProgram

UI“Screens”


listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

Swenson (2007)

BPM 1993: Task Management

backgroundcheck

createaccount

checkguidelines

LaunchesUI

User accessesoriginal UI directly

Human BPM/Workflow:

Background Check

Conform

ance Guidelines

ApplicationLogic in

MonolithicProgram

UI“Screens”


listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

Swenson (2007)

BPM 1996: Workflow Routing

backgroundcheck

LaunchesUI

User accessesoriginal UI directly

Human BPM/Workflow:

Background Check

Conform

ance Guidelines

ApplicationLogic in

MonolithicProgram

UI“Screens”


listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

createaccount

checkguidelines

Swenson (2007)

BPM 2002: Services Integration

EnterInformation

Background Check

Conform

ance Rules

ApplicationLogic and

SOA

ServicesInterfaces


listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

Reviewrules check

backgr. check

create accoun

UI connects user to BPMS, not the back-end

applications

Swenson (2007)

BPM 2007: Composite Services

EnterInformation

Background C

heck

New

Rules


SOA


listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

ReviewCheck Create accoun

ESB/BPELComposite

Service

Swenson (2007)


EnterInformation

Background C

heck

New

Rules


SOA Enterprise Application “Account Management”

listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

ReviewCheck Create accoun

ESB/BPELComposite Services

Swenson (2007)


EnterInformation

Background C

heck

Rules



listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct

ReviewCheck Create account



EnterInformation

Background C

heck

New

Rules



listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct




EnterInformation

Background C

heck

New

Rules



listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct



ExtraAudit

Separation of ResponsibilityBusiness Retains Control of

Assignment of ResponsibilityGroups, Roles, SkillsDeadlinesAlerts, Reminders, EscalationsOrder of TasksAddition of Manual TasksUser Interface

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IT Retains Control ofComputational LogicData RepresentationsScalability / PerformanceInteroperabilityMaster Data Management

EnterInformation

Background C

heck

New

Rules


listAccts

newAcct

updateAcct

deleteAcct


ESB/BPEL

Swenson (2007)

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BPM Standardization1995

1 standardization group for workflow

Reference model + 5 interface standards

Size of the average specification ~40 pages

2008

10+ working groups with interest in BPM

7+ standards for process models alone

Size of the average specification ~150 pages

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World Views - WfMC

WfMC: Life-Cycle View of BPMGoal: Provide integration standards for different phases of the BPM lifecycle

Components in place: Reference model, XPDL, Wf-XMLNext step: Evolve XPDL

BPM Experience: “Grandfathers” of BPM

XPDL: Process Definition InterchangeAllow 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

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World Views - OMG

OMG: Model-driven ArchitectureGoal: 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

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

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SBVRSemantics 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

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World Views - OASIS

OASIS: XML-centric standardsGoal: Provide transparent venue for standards that can be used by both vertical and horizontal interest groups

Components in place: ebXML, BPELNext step: updated ebXML components, ASAP, WS Resource Model

BPM Experience: workgroup-specific

BPEL – Execution Language

BPEL is an “executable” languageIncludes only executable operations

Does not contain the graphical diagram

Many Engines have proprietary formatsThey 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

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BPEL extension for Human TasksSource: Agrawal et al. (2007)

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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

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Standards Landscape

Near Completion

Stable

Under Development

Ideation Stage

Collaboration Agreement

Process Model Diagram

UML Activity Diagrams BPMN 1.0

Repository & Discovery

UDDI

Assurance

WS-Security SAML

Process Model Definition/Storage Formats

ebXML BPSS ebXML CPA/CPP

Transport Reliability

ebXML-RM WS-RM ...

Transport Layer

HTTP JMS ...

EncodingSOAP / Attachments

WS-Addressing

Data Definition

XML-Schema

Service End Point Definition

WSDL

Service Orchestration

Choreography Definition

WS-CDLBPEL

Monitoring & Audit

WfMC CWAD (IF5 1.0)

Runtime Interaction

Wf-XML 1.0 WfMCWAPI

Presentation

XForms

Service/Human

InteractionBPEL4People

BPMN 1.1

Process Model Semantics

BPDM 1.0

Proprietary (e.g. MQSeries)

Wf-XML 2.0

WfMC BPAF (IF5 2.0) BPRI

BPMN 2.0 (BPDM 2) JSF WS-RP

XPDL 2.1

RosettaNet PIPs

TakeawaysBPM Standards address different needs

Drawing Process Diagrams: BPMN

Moving Process Diagrams Around: XPDL (and future BPDM)

Programming Processes: BPEL

Calling other Processes: Wf-XML

No single organization has all the answers

Need to complement with organization-specific guidelines

Value is not in standards, but in their application

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Standards should be discovered, not invented

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Vincent Cerf, in: Haffer, Lyon: “Where the Wizards stay up late”, 1998 p. 254

Michael zur Muehlen, Ph.D.Center of Excellence in Business Process InnovationHowe School of Technology ManagementStevens Institute of TechnologyCastle Point on the HudsonHoboken, NJ 07030Phone: +1 (201) 216-8293Fax: +1 (201) 216-5385E-mail: [email protected]: http://www.cebpi.orgslides: www.slideshare.net/mzurmuehlen

Thank You - Questions?

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bpm standards: an overview

Technology

technology management

center of excellence

overview michael zur

graduate students

private university