Fundamentals of

Business Process Managament

Session 2

Jan Mendling
Outline

MON 15 July EI 8 Introduction to BPM

9:00 – 10:30 Process Identification

MON 15 July EI 8 Essentials of BPMN

11:00 – 12:30 Process Discovery and Quality Assurance

MON 15 July EI 8 Process Redesign
14:00 – 15:30 Automation

SEITE
Essentials of BPMN
BPM Lifecycle
Different Levels of a Process
Architecture

Level 1
Process
Process
Map
landscape
Level 2

Abstract Process Models

Level 3
Detailed Process Models
(e.g. BPMN)
Essentials of BPMN
The Vienna Coffeehouse Process

Hand coffee
Make coffee
to waiter
Barrista

Order
cancelled Discard coffee

Coffee is
ready
Coffee Shop

Take order Serve Coffee

Store
Waiter

open Coffee is
ready

Coffee
order

Go to cafe Order coffee Pay coffee

Coffee is
Thirsty Done
Coffee Lover

served
Listen to
piano

Read
newspaper
 8
Poster at Berliner BPM-Offensive http://www.bpmb.de
BPMN 2.0 Support
Why using BPMN?

Bridging Business and IT

Process Documentation
Process Improvement
Workflow-Management Today
Requirements Elicitation Planned
Service-oriented
Architectures

Easy to Learn
Via formal training
Rather easy
Via self-education Rather difficult
No statement

camunda services GmbH: BPMN 2008

(127 Participants)
XOR-Gateways

Decision based
on Data Grant Credit

M. Weske: Business Process Management,

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Evaluate Credit Advanced Credit
Risk Check

Reject Credit
Request

Fig 4.88. Sample business process with sequence flow and default sequence flow

11
Gateways and Events

Wait for
Event

M. Weske: Business Process Management,

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Receive Amount
[Type Receive]

Send Invoice
[Type Send]

Send Reminder
[Type Send]

14 days

Fig 4.85. Example of an event-based exclusive or gateway

12
AND-Gateways

Activates all Synchronizes

branches Update Inventory all branches

M. Weske: Business Process Management,

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Get Order Ship Goods

Send Invoice

Fig 4.87. Example of an and split and and join gateway

13
OR-Gateways

Sychronizes
Activates
all active
multiple
branches branches
(1 or more) Book Flight

M. Weske: Business Process Management,

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Plan Trip Book Hotel

Book Rental Car

Fig 4.86. Example of an inclusive or gateway

14
OR-Gateways:
Dead-Path-Elimination
Activates all Synchronizes
all branches
branches
(positive or
(positive or
negative)
negative) Book Flight

M. Weske: Business Process Management,

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Plan Trip Book Hotel

Book Rental Car

Fig 4.86. Example of an inclusive or gateway

15
 Replaying Tokens in BPMN

AND-Split AND-Join
OR-Split OR-Join

XOR-Split
 Artifacts in BPMN

Data Data Object

association

Data store
 One Pool and Several Lanes
Lane
Pool
Collaboration between Pools
Pool

Message Flow
Pool
Pool Pool
Decomposition: How big is too big?

Decompose
if more than
30 elements
Sub-process Activities
Advanced Repetition Patterns
Reusing of Sub-processes
Structured versus unstructured
loops
A List of Quotes
Multiple Instantiation
Message Events
Temporal Events
Racing Events
Racing between two pools
Process Abortion
Internal Exception
Boundary Events
Summary

• BPMN is a standardized process modeling language

• Rich set of symbols
• Control flow is defined using gateways
• Artifacts show data flow
• Pools and lanes depict resources
Process Discovery
BPM Lifecycle
Process Discovery

1. Defining the setting: This phase is dedicated to assembling a

team in a company that will be responsible for working on the
process.
2. Gathering information: This phase is concerned with building an
understanding of the process. Different discovery methods can
be used to acquire information on a process.
3. Conducting the modeling task: This phase deals with organizing
the creation of the process model. The modeling method gives
guidance for mapping out the process in a systematic way.
4. Assuring process model quality: This phase aims to guarantee
that the resulting process models meet different quality criteria.
This phase is important for establishing trust in the process
model.
Who is involved?

Domain Expert Process Analyst

38
Challenge 1:
Fragmented Process Knowledge

I make a photocopy
before handing over
the application

Why can‘t I directly

provide cash after
approval?
We bundle
refinancing to get
better interest rates.
Challenge 2:
Domain Experts think on Instance
Level
”Every trip is different.“

”You cannot really compare.

Our customers go to different
places in different seasons
using different modes of
transportation.“

”We can never do anything

exactly in the same way. There
are so many special
conditions.“

40
Challenge 3:
Knowledge about Process
Modelling is rare
”Could you please tell me, whether this diagram correctly
shows your process?“

41
Expertise of Process Analysts

Problem understanding
Episodic knowledge available to get to root of problem
Knowledge organisation helps to structure problem
Problem solving
Trigger identification (problem-related cues)
Hypothesis management (formulation and testing of hypotheses)
Goal setting (what needs to be achieved next)
Top-down strategy driven by analysis goals
Modelling skills
Well-structured and laid out
Systematically labelled
Explicit start and end points of a process
Appropriate granularity and decomposition
42
Process Discovery Techniques

Evidence-based
Document analysis
Observation
Process mining

Interview-based

Workshop-based

43
Document Analysis

Documents point to existing roles, activities and business

objects

Formal documentation in terms of

Organization chart
Employment plan
Quality certificate report
Internal policies
Glossaries and handbooks

Forms

Work instructions

44
Observation

Observe what people do at their workplace

Trace business objects in the course of their lifecycle
Inspect the work environment

45
Process Mining

46
 Interviews

Interview

Validation Modeling
• Valid
• Complete
Verification
• Sound
Structured vs. unstructured interviews
Assumption: analyst and stakeholder share terminology
Then, questions target at identifying deviations from standard
processing
47
Workshops

Gather all key stakeholders together

One process analyst, multiple domain experts
Participants interact to create shared understanding
Often: software-supported, a model is directly created during
the workshop (separate role)
Model is reference point for discussions
Alternative: brown-paper workshops

48
Strengths and Weaknesses

Technique Strength Weakness

Document Analysis • Structured information • Outdated material
• Independent from • Wrong level of
availability of abstraction
stakeholders

Observation • Context-rich insight into • Potentially intrusive

process • Stakeholders likely to
behave differently
• Only few cases
Automatic Discovery • Extensive set of cases • Potential issue with data
• Objective data quality

Interview • Detailed inquiry into • Requires sparse time of

process process stakeholders
• Several iterations
required before sign-off

Workshop • Direct resolution of • Synchronous availability

conflicting views of several stakeholders

49
Effort of Process Discovery

Consider that the order process of your favorite online

book retailer has ten major activities that are
conducted by different persons. How much time do
you need approximately for creating a process model
that is validated and approved by the process owner?
Make appropriate assumptions.
Any Difference in Discovery?

Consider the following two

companies.
• Company A is young, founded
three years ago, and has grown
rapidly to a current toll of one
hundred employees.
• Company B is owned by the
state and operates in a domain
with extensive health and
security regulations.
How might these different
characteristics influence a
workshop-based discovery
approach?
Organizing the Gathered Material

1. Identify the process boundaries

2. Identify activities and events
3. Identify resources and their handovers
4. Identify the control flow
5. Identify additional elements.
Process Boundaries

• Under which condition does the process start?

• With which result does it end?
• Which perspective do you assume?
Identify Activities and Events
Identify Resources and Handovers
Identify Control Flow
Quality Assurance
Is this process model of good
quality?

Deadlock
Syntactic Quality: Verification
Is this process model of good
quality?

Deadlock

Labeling
Formulate Labels Adequately

• Activities as Verb-Object
• Events as Object-Passive-Participle
• Conditions with reference to Object
Semantic Quality: Validation

• Validity and
• Completeness

Domain Expert Process Analyst

Pragmatic Quality: Layout

Models must look nice

Seven Process Modeling
Guidelines (7PMG)

G1 Use as few elements in the model as possible

G2 Minimize the routing paths per element
G3 Use one start and one end event
G4 Model as structured as possible
G5 Avoid OR routing elements
G6 Use verb-object activity labels
G7 Decompose a model with more than 50 elements
How to remodel this process?
The reworked process
Summary

• Domain expert and process analyst have different

strengths and limitations in process discovery
• There are various discovery methods
• Quality Assurance is important