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© 2012 IBM Corporation
Synchronizing Business and IT Process Views with BPMN
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Hagen Völzer Joint work with Jochen Küster and Cédric Favre
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Introduction: A Business Rule in IBM WODM
Uses connection to a repository of business objects (and their attributes)
Hagen Völzer 2
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
IT System
Agility through Artifact Separation
3 Hagen Völzer
Business Rule
(Textual Requirement)
Implementation
of rule (Code)
IT
Advantages: – Change- and maintenance friendly
– Less development effort
– What you see is what you execute
yesterday
Business
Business
today
IT System
Rules Engine
Rule
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
When is such an approach successful?
Hagen Völzer 4
Characteristics of (such) business
rules:
–Rules are meaningful to
business
–Can be read/created directly by
business in a way that is
understood by a dedicated
engine
–Rules change frequently
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Can this be done for other artifacts/aspects as well?
Other artifacts: – Forms / UI
– Process / control flow (main
business behavior)
– KPI / monitoring data
– Business events
– Data model / information
structure / business objects
– ?
How successful / realistic is the
idea for these artifacts?
5 Hagen Völzer
Characteristics for rules: – Rules are meaningful to
business
– Can be read/created directly
by business in a way that is
understood by a dedicated
engine
– Rules change frequently
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Outline
The Business-IT gap problem for process models
A solution approach: The Shared Process Model (work in
progress) –Basic solution design
–Recorded demo of a prototype
–Our notion of consistency
Discussion
Hagen Völzer 6
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
IT System
The Case of Process Models
7 Hagen Völzer
Business Model
IT Model
IT
Disadvantages: – Models, being maintained independently, quickly get out of sync
(inconsistent)
– What you see is not what is executed (audit failures, ineffective
operations, misinterpreted monitoring data)
– Not change friendly
Practice
Business
Business
Theory
IT System
Process Engine
Process Model
Process Engine
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Road Block 1 (yesterday)
Example from a bank
Different languages and
tools on business and IT
level
BPMN / ARIS
BPEL
Transformation from
Business to IT is possibly
automated
No bidirectional
transformations
Inconsistencies quickly
occur and cause
problems
Today: Can use BPMN 2.0
as common language for
business and IT
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
9
Road Block 2: Different Concerns and Levels of Detail Current Practice:
– Companies use multiple models
– Is this necessary?
Case study [Branco et al., Uni
Waterloo]
– 70 model pairs from a single bank
– 23 interviews (business and IT)
Study differences in model pairs
(business –IT)
– Identified change patterns and
their frequency
– Other findings regarding
consistency (later)
In addition, we talked to other BPM
practitioners and architects
Business
Model
IT Model
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Business and IT want different models/views (1/2)
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IT model has compared to business model:
Complementary implementation detail (data, services, communication)
Formalization and renaming (task/event specialization, condition formalization) – no
alteration of flow
Contd.
Business
Model
IT Model
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Business and IT want different models/views (2/2)
11 Hagen Völzer
IT model has compared to business model:
Behavioral refinement and refactoring – Hierarchical refinement / subsumption
– Hierarchical refactoring (for maintenance and performance)
– Added IT tasks
Added behavior (e.g. technical exception handling)
=> Organizations use multiple models of the same process (The difference between them is
technically more than just “omitting some details”)
IT Model
Business
Model
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IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
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Multiple models get inconsistent
Scenario 1: IT Refinement / Implementation – IT may change business-relevant aspects, resulting in inconsistency with
business view, because: • Business view is incomplete (frequently) • Business view contains inconsistencies (frequently to occasionally) • Business view contradicts some IT requirements, e.g. order of tasks (occasionally) • Business view does not anymore faithfully represent the actual business process
(rarely)
Scenario 2: Business Change – Business makes changes to the business view due to new business
requirements (Case study: roughly 2 fixes per project per year)
Scenario 3: Technical Change – New IT requirements cause change of the Technical view
• E.g. upcoming IT infrastructure changes require changes in executable process models
– Some changes may affect business-relevant aspects
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Inconsistencies cause problems
Shipment delays, business disruptions, audit failures
From the case study:
E.g. some functionality was deleted inadvertently from IT model because
there was no correspondence in the business model – IT implementation was outsourced
– Discovered after process was in production
– Running instances had to be canceled and recreated
E.g. similar scenario but now – inconsistency between audit model and running process caused audit issue
and a fine
Hagen Völzer 13
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Outline
The Business-IT gap problem for process models
A solution approach: The Shared Process Model (work in
progress) –Basic solution design
–Recorded demo of a prototype
–Our notion of consistency
Discussion
Hagen Völzer 14
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Start End
A1 A2 A3
C
D
B
Start End
C
BA
F
D
D1 D2
E
Solution: The Shared Process Model
Check in
(private or
common)
Check out
Each view can be changed – Common changes to one view are propagated to the other view (but not private changes) – Links are maintained between model elements to propagate change propagation
Change
IT View Business View
Change
Check out Shared Process Model
(Process Model
Synchronizer)
Check in
(private or
common)
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
The Shared Process Model – Implementation Approach
Check in
(private or
common)
Check out
Change
IT View Business View
Change
Check out
Shared Process Model
Check in
(private or
common)
Maintain internally two separate BPMN models and links between their elements – Links are created automatically during refinement through refinement patterns and must be
maintained – Links are used to propagate changes from one side to the other and to check consistency
Advantages of this approach: – View creation is simple, export BPMN model, which can be consumed by editors and other tools – Generalization to more than two views relatively straight-forward
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Correspondence Links
Links are 1:1, 1:m, m:1, but could be m:m as well
Some elements are not linked (private elements)
17 Hagen Völzer
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Basic Change Propagation Mechanism
Create horizontal diff between IT models (generic model comparison)
Translate diff from business to IT using links
Apply translated diff to business model to obtain new business model – Links need to be maintained
18 Hagen Völzer
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IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Refined Change Propagation Mechanism
Each operation of the diff is applied atomically to create a modified
business model and to update the links
19 Hagen Völzer
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation 20
Recorded Demo
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Outline
The Business-IT gap problem for process models
A solution approach: The Shared Process Model (work in
progress) –Basic solution design
–Recorded demo of a prototype
–Our notion of consistency
Discussion
Hagen Völzer 21
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Business-IT Consistency
22 Hagen Völzer
What you see (in business view) is what you execute (in IT)
Intuition: Links always represent hierarchical refinements/subsumptions
Private elements are `between’ links (not within)
In IT, exceptional behavior may be added
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Inconsistency Examples
23 Hagen Völzer
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Business-IT Consistency
Dedicated hierarchical refinement actions preserve consistency
Common changes preserve consistency
For private freehand-editing, consistency can be checked upon check-in
Consistency can be checked efficiently – because it is on the defined directly on the model
Consistency Implies that `business behavior’ is preserved (but not the converse)
24 Hagen Völzer
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation 25
Consistency Management
Change Management on top of Shared Model based on consistency is desirable (future work)
Shared
Model
Business
View IT View
/ /
Business conform (i.e. meets
business requirements =
accepted by business analyst)
and valid (i.e. accepted by
modeling tool)
IT conform (i.e. meets IT
requirements = accepted by IT
architect), valid (i.e. accepted by
modeling tool), and executable
(i.e. accepted by execution
engine)
/
Business-IT consistency (=
integrity of shared model, i.e.,
business view reflects the
executable model)
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Conclusion
A single process view is often not enough
Multiple views quickly go out of sync
Multiple views can be kept in sync with the Shared Process Model – i.e., through vertical model synchronization
26 Hagen Völzer
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
Outlook to Future Work
Extensive practical evaluation
Alternative implementation for simple scenarios: Extended meta-model
Advanced scenarios: – Change Management on top of Shared Model
– One business model corresponds to multiple alternative IT models
– More than two views
27 Hagen Völzer
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
Can this be done for other artifacts/aspects as well?
Other artifacts: – Forms / UI
– Process / control flow (main
business behavior)
– KPI / monitoring data
– Business events
– Data model / information structure /
business objects
– ?
How successful / realistic is the
idea for these artifacts?
28 Hagen Völzer
Characteristics for rules: – Rules are meaningful to business
– Can be read/created directly by
business in a way that is
understood by a dedicated engine
– Rules change frequently
© 2010 IBM Corporation
IBM Research – Zurich
Process Management Technologies
© 2012 IBM Corporation
References
M. Castelo Branco, Y. Xiong, K. Czarnecki, J. Küster, H. Völzer: A Case
Study on Consistency Management of Business and IT Process Models in
Banking. To appear in Software and Systems Modelling
J. Küster, H. Völzer, C. Favre, M. Castelo Branco and K.Czarnecki:
Supporting Different Process Views through a Shared Process Model.
IBM Tech Report RZ 3823
M. Castelo Branco, J. Troya, K.Czarnecki, J. Küster, H. Völzer: Matching
Business Process Workflows across Abstraction Levels. MoDELS 2012:
626-641
C. Favre, Jochen Küster, and Hagen Völzer : The Shared Process Model.
BPM Demos 2012
Hagen Völzer 29