From Subject-Phase Model Based Process Specifications to an Executable Workflow

Abstract

In Business Process Management different stakeholders require different levels of abstractions of a process specififcation. Upper management is mainly interested in key perfomance indicators like speed, required ressources, customer complaints etc. Process owners who may be responsible for a process from end to end want to see the involved parties and want to have an overview of the major activities executed in a process. The people responsible for executing a process want to understand the details of the work they have to do in a process. Programmer also need to know the very details of a process to integrate existing application into a workflow system supporting process execution. In S-BPM there are up to now 5 Levels of process abstraction [2]: Goals of process and the related key perfomance indicators, Process architecture showing the process of a process system with their relationships, the active elements of a process called subjects together with the messages they exchange (Subject communication diagrsmm: SCD, the behaviour of each subject (Subject Behaviour Diagramm: SBD) and the implementation for the various subjects. In practical projects it has been shown that between process architecture and subject communication diagramm another view is required especially for process owners. Process owner want to see the involved subjekts with the major activities they execute. In this article a approach is described to specify processes from end to end. This approach allows to give an overview about the dynamic of a process on one page. This apporach has been used in several industrial projects and it has beeen well accepted by process owners as well as by people executing a process.