ProSyWis: Concept and Prototype for Managing Knowledge-Intensive Processes Rüdiger Buck-Emden Publisher: Dean Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Heiden University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Department of Computer Science Sankt Augustin, Germany November 2014 Technical Report 04-2014 ISSN 1869-5272 Copyright ÷c 2014, by the author(s). All rights reserved. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proĄt or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the Ąrst page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior speciĄc permission. Das Urheberrecht des Autors bzw. der Autoren ist unveräußerlich. Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Das Werk kann innerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes (UrhG), German copyright law, genutzt werden. Jede weitergehende Nutzung regelt obiger englischsprachiger Copyright-Vermerk. Die Nutzung des Werkes außerhalb des UrhG und des obigen Copyright-Vermerks ist unzulässig und strafbar. b ProSyWis: Concept and Prototype for Managing Knowledge-Intensive Processes Rüdiger Buck-Emden [email protected] University of Applied Sciences Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Department of Computer Science Technical Report 04-2014 ISSN 1869-5272 Abstract — Business process infrastructures like BPMS I. INTRODUCTION (Business Process Management Systems) and WfMS (Workflow Management Systems) traditionally focus on the Since the 1990s, when organizations started to move automation of processes predefined at design time. This from function-oriented business organization to business approach is well suited for routine tasks which are processed process orientation [1], a multitude of workflow repeatedly and which are described by a predefined control management systems (WfMS) and business process flow. In contrast, knowledge-intensive work is more goal and management systems (BPMS) has been developed (for data-driven and less control-flow oriented. Knowledge workers definition and scope see for instance [2]). Among them are need the flexibility to decide dynamically at run-time and WebSphere (IBM), jBPM (JBoss), webMethods (Software based on current context information on the best next process AG), YAWL (Open Source) and others. The promise of step to achieve a given goal. Obviously, in most practical these systems is to effectively support pre-specified routine scenarios, these decisions are complex and cannot be business processes by liberating workers from coordination anticipated and modeled completely in a predefined process tasks, improving maintainability of business control flows model. Therefore, adaptive and dynamic process management (by extracting the control flow definition explicitly into the techniques are necessary to augment the control-flow oriented BPMS/WfMS) and finally leading to higher quality and part of process management (which is still a need also for efficiency of business operation. knowledge workers) with flexible, context-dependent, goal- BPMS/WfMS approaches are oriented support. Although today’s sufficient for routine work (carried out repeatedly with This paper addresses the demand for flexible business process predictable results in a standard way according to a pre- support infrastructures and presents ProSyWis (Process defined control flow), the question how to best support Support System for Knowledge Workers), an approach for creative knowledge workers (like business decision makers, dynamic and adaptive management of knowledge-intensive health professionals, company lawyers, merger & acquisition processes, that combines classic control-flow support with consultants, incident managers) has still to be answered. declarative process modeling, rule-based activity identification, Many if not most of the core business problems activity prioritization, complex event processing, case-based companies are facing today are of knowledge work nature2, reasoning, and inter-personal collaboration. First ProSyWis meaning being goal and data-driven, non-repeatable and, to prototype components have been implemented based on some degree, unpredictable [3]. Knowledge work is typically Software AG’s webMethods suite1. embedded in a socio-technical context of human experts and information technology, thereby relying heavily on Keywords: Process Automation, Knowledge-intensive collaboration and continuous communication among people. Process, Knowledge Worker, Adaptive Case Management, In addition, this type of work is not driven by pre-specified Dynamic Case Management, Declarative Process Modeling, control structures, but by dynamically evolving, work-related Collaborative Work, Rule-based System, Case-Based Reasoning, circumstances comprising e.g. goals, received events, Complex Event Processing, BPMS, WfMS, CMMN 1 Many thanks to Sascha Alda, Robert Czerwinski, Stefan 2 Already in 2009 a growing proportion of 25% to 40% of Schulz and Christina Veit for their contributions to this the workforce was classified as knowledge workers ( [86]). research project. ProSyWis – Concept and Prototype for Managing Knowledge-Intensive Processes 1 executed and pending tasks, as well as all current and Process Model and Notation [28]). Nevertheless, BPMN can historic data/information/documents, which influence the complement CMMN: to integrate strictly defined process flow of the work in question (figurative, all these elements fragments, CMMN allows to reference prescriptive (a.k.a. have traditionally been collected in a “case folder”). imperative) sub-processes modeled e.g. in BPMN. In short, contemporary BPMS/WfMS lack to support On the commercial side, some product offerings are knowledge workers in highly dynamic scenarios where available to address knowledge worker demand for flexible, decisions about next process steps depend on the current adaptive process management. Among them are the products situation and where changing circumstances require the from Appian, ECM, IBM, ISIS Papyrus, Kofax, Open Text, flexibility to adapt behavior dynamically at runtime. On the and Pegasystems [9]. These offerings either have their roots other hand, flexible CSCW (Computer Supported in the field of content and document management or in Collaborative Work) tools [4] provided by the groupware workflow and business process management. But the market community generally miss the process perspective. This is penetration of dedicated products still seems to be limited. where concepts like Knowledge-Intensive Processes (KiPs One reason might be that knowledge work in most cases also [5] [6] [7]), Adaptive Case Management (ACM) [8], includes some routine work. Therefore we expect that ACM Dynamic Case Management (DCM) [9]), intelligent and the likes will be rather assimilated by established BPMS Business Process Management (iBPM [10]) and others (e.g. products than become a separate market segment of its own [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]) come into play. In context of [29]. these concepts, a “cases” or a “knowledge-intensive process” can be roughly seen as a set of work assignments driven by III. DIMENSIONS OF PROCESS MODELING evolving circumstances, requiring the execution of situation- A core characteristic of a BPMS is the availability of dependent activities, and controlled by knowledge-workers explicit process models, which represent the given process in order to achieve a reasonable outcome or goal (for knowledge and drive the process execution. Process models instance handling of lawsuits, insurance claims, research have to take various perspectives into account. These are, activities, or business management tasks). “Adaptive” refers among others, the functional perspective (which are the to the ability to dynamically adjust behavior to changing possible activities performed during process execution), the circumstances. Although the details of how to implement flow perspective (which activities are performed in which these concepts are subject of various ongoing research and sequence under which conditions), the data perspective development initiatives, the goal seems to be clear: “to (which data elements are produced, consumed and provide enough structure to make knowledge work exchanged during process execution), and the resource manageable, but not to provide too much structure as to perspective (which people, systems, and services with which strangle it” [17]. capabilities execute the tasks). Details are discussed e.g. in This document contributes a holistic, design-oriented [30] [7]. If it comes to knowledge-intensive processes, there perspective on supporting knowledge work with ProSyWis is no general agreement in the community how to model (Process Support System for Knowledge Workers). The them. In the following, we put some emphasis on declarative document is organized as follows: After a short overview on process models to describe weakly defined processes. related work in industry and academics, we discuss briefly the key concepts ProSyWis is built on: events, rules, goals, IV. DECLARATIVE PROCESS FLOW MODELING milestones, decisions, and cases. We than describe the One essential finding of the community’s research and ProSyWis architecture in more detail, give an overview on development activities so far is the fact that the activity flow first findings from the prototype implementation, and briefly performed by knowledge workers cannot be modeled sketch next steps.