Business Process Concepts

and Modeling
Prof. Dra. Lucinéia Heloisa Thom

Título do capítulo
About myself

•  Professional
–  Associate Professor at Informatics Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande
do Sul (INF-UFRGS) since 2013
–  Institutional Representative of INF-UFRGS at the Computer Brazilian Society

•  Academic
–  Post-doc in Computer Science (UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brasil, 2012)
–  Post-doc in Computer Science (University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France, 2011)
–  Post-doc in Computer Science (Ulm University, Germany, 2009)
–  PhD in Computer Science (UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brasil, 2006)
–  PhD stage(Stuttgart University, Germany, 2005)
–  Master in Computer Science (UFRGS, Porto Alegre, Brasil, 2002)
–  Bachelor in Computer Science (UNISC, Santa Cruz do Sul, Brasil, 1999)

•  Research Areas of Interest

–  Business Process Management (BPM)
–  Ontology and BPM
–  Information technology applied in Healthcare
–  Software Engineering
Agenda

•  Business Process Concepts and Modeling

–  Introduction to Business Process Management
–  Basic Concepts in Business Process Management
–  Requirements Elicitation in Process Modeling
–  Business Process Modeling and Notation

•  Research Topics in Business Process Management

–  Verification and Completness of BPMN Specification Code
–  Ontology Building based on Process Models
–  Extraction of Process Models based on Textual Procedures
–  Big Data classification based on Process Models
Business Process
Concepts and Modeling
Introduction
Business Process are Everywhere

Order-to-cash
Issue-to-resolution

Order-to-order

Application-to-approval
Payment
 Business Process

•  A set of one or more linked procedures or

activities which collectively realize a business
objective or policy goal, normally within the
context of an organizational structure defining
functional roles and relationships (WfMC, 1999)

•  A business process consists of a set of activities

that are performed in coordination in an
organizational and technical environment. These
activities jointly realize a business goal (Dumas,
1998)

A business process is as collection of inter-

related events, activities and decision points
that involve a number of actors and objects, and
that collectively lead to an outcome that is of
value to at least one customer (Dumas, 2013)
Example of Business Process

c] Fill the
prescription

f] Verify the g] Produce drugs

a] Get information b] Calculate the e] Send the
dosage of the prescription to dosage
about the patient
drugs the farmacy
d] Notify the
farmacy that a
new drug needs to
be produced
Business Process Management (BPM)

Business Process Management is the art and science of

overseeing how work is performed in an organization to
ensure consistent outcomes and to take advantage of
improvement opportunities (Dumas et al 2013)

BPM as a body of
methods, techniques and
tools to discover, analyze,
redesign, execute and monitor
business processes

8
Why BPM

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is

that automation applied to an efficient operation will
magnify the efficiency.

The second is that automation applied to an inefficient

operation will magnify the inefficiency.”

To learn how to model and improve business

process rather than only to know how to build
information systems is a fundamental ability to
whatever IT professional
 Benefits of BPM

•  Dynamic distribution of work

•  Work monitoring
•  Applications can be automatically invoked
during process execution
•  Standardization of non-standardized
processes
•  Improvement of process efficiency
•  Reduction in time to complete workflows,
and increase in their quality
•  Reduction in human resources
•  Better ability to cope with and handle
changes to processes
•  Increase in the relevance of existing IT
systems within an organization
BPM Applications

•  Aplications based on activity control and ordering can

be automatized by a WfMS
•  In Robotics, BPM and Workflow have been used to
standardize and document processes
•  Healthcare processes that require dinamic adaptation and
also exception handling
•  E-learning
•  E-science
BPM lifecycle

Dumas, 2013
Process Identification

Which process need •  Which process present

to be improved? operational problems?
•  Which are the limits of a
process (start and end)?

•  The complexity to answer

these questions is direclty
related to the process –
oriented thinking existent
in organizations
Dumas, 2013
BPM Lifecycle
Process Identification

•  In case the organization already had a BPM initiative it is

possible that it has also process documentation
–  The process scope can be defined
•  In case there exists no BPM initiative, the BPM team must:
–  Identify the processes related to organizational
problems
–  Demimitate the process scope
–  Identify relations between process (part-of-relations)

Process Identification à Process Architecture

BPM Lifecycle
Process Identification

•  Estimate the value of a process execution is fundamental

“YOU CANNOT CONTROL WHAT YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO ESTIMATE

” (Tom DeMarco)
•  Before analyze a process in details it is important to define clear
metrics to measure the process performance

•  Costs metrics
–  Quantity of equipment's allocated in time space
•  Time metrics
–  Time between an equipment request and its delivery
•  Quality metrics (error rates)
•  Number of times a process finalize with undesirable result. E.g.
an equipment is returned because it is not suitable
BPM Lifecycle
Process Identification

•  In this phase, a business problem is posed,

processes relevant to the problem being
addresses are identified, delimited and
related to each other

•  The outcome is a new or updated process

architecture that provides an overall view
of the processes in an organization and
their relationship
 BPM Lifecycle
Process Discovery
•  Also called process •  The goal of this phase is to
modelling discover and to document
the processes being
•  The current state of each executed in an organization
relevant processes is
documented, typically in
the form of one or
several as-is process
model
•  Why “Process
Discovery”?
–  Why process already
exist at least in the
mind of people
working in an
organization
 BPM Lifecycle
Process Analysis and Redesign
•  Issues associated to the as-is •  The redesign aims to identify
process are identified, changes to the process that
documented and whenever would help to address the
possible quantified using issues identified in the
performance measures analysis phase

•  The output is a structured •  The output of the redesign

collection of issues phase is typically a to-be
process model
•  These issues are typically
prioritized in terms of their
impact and effort to solve
them
 BPM Lifecycle
Process Implementation and monitoring
•  Changes required to •  Relevant data are
move from the as-is collected and analyzed to
process to the to-be determine how well is the
process are prepared process performing with
and performed respect to its
performance measures
•  Process implementation and performance
covers two aspects objectives
–  Organizational
change management
–  Process automation
Stakeholders in the BPM Lifecycle

•  Management team
•  Process Owners
•  Process Participant
•  Process Analysts
•  System Engineering
•  The BPM Group
Business Process
Concepts and Modeling
Basic Concepts
Basic Concepts
Workflow

The automation of a business process, in whole or part,

during which documents, information or tasks are passed
from one participant to another for action, according to a set
of procedural rules

•  Wokflow Management System

–  interpret a process definition
–  creates and manages the execution of workflows through
the use of software, running on one or more workflow
engines, which is able to interpret the process definition,
interact with workflow participants and, where required,
invoke the use of IT tools and applications.
 Basic Concepts
Task vs. Activity
•  Task •  Activity
–  Atomic step in a process –  A variety of consecutive steps
–  In a buying process to •  Verification of equipment
verify if a received involving several steps
product is the one –  Verify if the received
requested equipment is the
specified
–  Verify if the equipment
works properly
–  Verify if the equipment
includes all devices

THOM, L. H., IOCHPE, C., MITSCHANG, B. A Transactional Metamodel for Business

Process ModelingWith Support To Business Process Patterns. In: First IFIP Academy on the
State of Software Theory and Practice. Porto Alegre, Brazil. 2005.
 Basic Concepts
Manual and Automatic Tasks
•  Manual Task •  Automatic Task
–  Cannot be automatized •  An activity which is capable of computer
automation using a workflow management
•  system to manage the activity during
execution of the business process of which it
•  forms a part.

c] Fill the
prescription

f] Verify the g] Produce drugs

a] Get information b] Calculate the e] Send the
dosage of the prescription to dosage
about the patient
drugs the farmacy
d] Notify the
farmacy that a
new drug needs to
be produced
 Basic Concepts
Role and Actor
•  Role •  Actor
–  A set of actors or process –  Human actors, organizations, or software
participants sharing systems acting on behalf of human
specific characteristics, actors or organizations), physical objects
abilities, etc. (equipment, materials, products, paper
documents) and immaterial object
(electronic documents and electronic
records)

c] Fisician

b] Phisician f] ... g] ...

a] Nurse e] System

d] System
Basic Concepts
Decision Point

•  points in time when a decision is made that affects the way the
process is executed.
–  For example, as a result of the inspection, the site engineer
may decide that the equipment should be returned or that
the equipment should be accepted.

This decision affects what happens later in the process

Basic Concepts
Control Flows

•  Process activities are connected with control flows

AND-Split AND-Join Sequência Sequência

Sequência

c] Fill the
prescription

f] Verify the g] Produce drugs

a] Get information b] Calculate the e] Send the
dosage of the prescription to dosage
about the patient
drugs the farmacy
d] Notify the
farmacy that a
new drug needs to
be produced
Basic Concepts
Control Flows

•  Sequencial

A B Animation

•  And-Split
B
A And Animation
C

•  And-Join

B
And D Animation
C
Basic Concepts
Partitions

•  Represent the entities responsible by the

activities of a process
–  Refer to the participants of a process and
can be an organization, a role, a human
actor, a system
–  E.g., Financial, Buying, Selling, Marketing
departments
Basic Concepts
Work items
The representation of the work to be processed (by a workflow
participant) in the context of an activity within a process instance

Oracle
Components of Process

Dumas, 2013
Business Process
Concepts and Modeling
Requirements Elicitation
Process Identification
Definition
Process identification is a set of activities aiming to
systematically define the set of business processes of a
company and establish clear criteria for prioritizing them
Dumas, 2013

Process
Identification
 Process Identification
Keep the key process in mind…
•  Seldon organizations can „  Some processes need to
define, analyse and be priorized due to their
redesign all their processes importance for the
organizational estrategical
•  It is technically expensive to level
support all the processes of
„  Other processes can pose
an organization and at the problems which also need
same time to monitor their
to be solved
performance

•  It is mandatory to
whatever organization
interested in a BPM
solution to foccus on a
subset of its processes
Process Identification
Key phases

•  Process identification includes two phases

–  Designation
•  To understand the processes executed in an
organization and their relationships
–  Validation
•  To priorize the process that will be (re)-
designed

Important: none of these phases is

related with a detailed process design
Process Identification
Process Chategorization

•  Michael Porter presents two process categories

–  Core processes (primary activities)
•  Includes key processes of the
organization such as product
manufacture and service offer (add
value)

–  Additional Processes (secondary

activities)
•  Support the execution of the core the Michael Porter
processes. Infra-structure, RH and
technology development and acquisition
Process Identification •  Negative Aspects
Methods

Technique Positive Negative

Brainstorm Easy to configure No preparation ??

Interaction between people
Interviews Motivates the participants Difficult to achieve a consensus
Makes possible a complete Participants must want to
conversation contribute
Keeps the focus in specific Interviewers must be trained to
aspects do good interviews
Personal opinion can be Has the risk of conduct the
expressed interviewed
Scenarios Efficient to understand the Don’t allow to obtain all the
goals of the users requirements
5W1H Systematic questionary Don’t contribute to group
discussion
Process Identification
Methods

•  5W1H

What What will be done

When When will be done
Where Where will be done
Why Why will be done
Who Who will done
How How will be done
The Business Process
Modeling Notation
(BPMN)
Process Modeling

Organizational
Analysis

“AS IS”
Process
Models

Process “TO BE”

Analysis & Design Process Models

Improvement
Measures for

Target Values
Process Process
Evaluation Implementation

Process Models
Executable
Process
Process
Metrics Enactment &
Monitoring
Why Process Modeling

•  Process models are important in several

stages of the BPM lifecycle
•  The main reason for process modeling are:
–  Make easier process understanding and
the sharing of knowledge between
process participants
–  Help to prevent and to identify execution
problems

Process modeling is a pre-requirement to the

analysis, redesign and implementation of
business process (Dumas, 2013)
Process Modeling

Problems •  Communication
problems between
the analist and the
usersproblemas
•  Lack of process
documentation;
•  User resistence to
provide process
information
Process Modeling Language

•  Includes three parts:

–  Syntax, Semantics, Notation

•  Syntax: set of process modeling elements and

business rules regarding these elements
•  Semantics: combines syntax and textual
description of the elements (must be precise)
•  Notation: set of graphical symbols
representing the modeling elements
Process Modeling Rules

Mendling, 1999
Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN)

•  More than 100 elements

–  Do not panic!!!
•  A subset of the elements is already
enough to model process
•  Learn first the basic set of elements
–  Further elements should ne gradually
learned
What is BPMN

•  BPMN is a notation based on flow diagrams for process modeling

•  BPMN allows to generate an execution process (e.g. BPEL) from a
process diagram
•  The current version of BPMN is translated for several idioms
•  Have look in a http://bpmb.de/index.php/BPMNPoster
•  Spanish version: Ildefonso Montero, Luciano García-Bañuelos,
Marlon Dumas
•  Portuguese version: Lucinéia Heloisa Thom and Cirano Iochpe
BPMN in Action

•  OMG standard supported by several BPM tools

–  Bizagi Process Modeller
–  Signavio (http://www.signavio.com/)
–  TIBCO Business Studio (free download, quite large)
–  IBM Websphere Business Modeler
–  ARIS
–  Oracle BPA
–  Business Process Visual Architect (Visual Paradigm)
–  Bonita
BPMN
The complete set
BPMN
Reduced Set

•  Flow Objects
–  Are the main elements to represent process
behaviour. There exists three:
•  Activities
•  Events
•  Gateways
•  Connectors
–  Connects flow onjects, representing dependencies
between them (execution flow)
•  Sequence Flow
•  Message Flow
•  Association
BPMN
Reduced Set

•  Swimlanes
–  Represent process participants, i.e. Organizational
roles (humans, programs, machines) participating
in a process execution
•  Pool
•  Lane (em Português, “faixa”)
•  Artifacts
–  Elements that represent addition information in a
process. There exist three types:
•  Data objects
•  Group
•  Annotation
BPMN
Reduced set
BPMN
From 1.000 miles away

•  A BPMN model is a graph composed of four elements

BPMN process

•  Purchase Order Process

Dumas, 2013
 BPMN Process
Start and End Events

•  Start Event
–  Indicates when a process instance starts execution
•  End Event
–  Indicates when a process instance completes execution

Start Event End Event

 BPMN Process
Process Instance

•  A new instance of the purchase ordering process is created

always when a purchase order arrives and finishes when the
order is fulfilled
•  The token concept represents a process instance
•  Tokens are created in the context of a start event and run
through the process until the end of the process when they are
destroyed

token
BPMN elements
Activities (label convention)

•  Name related to a process object + Verb in the imperative

•  Ex.: Order Approval
–  Before the name an adjective can be placed
•  Submit Drive Licensing
–  The verb can be followed by a complement that indicates
its purpose
•  Renew drive licensing though an agency

To avoid labels with more than 5 words

BPMN elements
Events

•  Must start with a name (typically a process

object) and finish with a verb in the participle
–  E.g.: Invoice submitted
•  Before the name an adjective can be placed
–  Urgent purchase order submitted
•  The first word must be Uppercase
BPMN elements
Process label convention

•  The name of a process must came after an adjective

–  E.g. fulfillment of an purchase order
•  Choose the verb that represents the process and give
a name for that (e.g. full fill)
•  To use “- “it is possible
•  The first letter of a process name should not be
Uppercase
BPMN elements
Gateways

•  OR-Split and Or-Join

Dumas, 2013
BPMN elements
Gateways

•  AND-Split and AND-Join

Dumas, 2013
BPMN elements
Gateways

•  XOR-Split and XOR-Join

Dumas, 2013
Exercise
•  From what you learned until now find the error in this process:

Dumas, 2013
Exercise
•  If the seller is already registered, as this party will wait for the account creation
request message which in that case will never arrive

Dumas, 2013
Exercise
Find the error in this model

A. The AND control flow after activity A.

B. The XOR control flow after activity D.
C. The AND control flow before activity F.
D. The XOR control flow after activity F.
Sound and No-sound Process

Dumas, 2013
BPMN elements
Artefacts

Dumas, 2013
BPMN elements
Pools and Lanes

Dumas, 2013
BPMN elements
Message Flow

Dumas, 2013
BPMN elements
Subprocess

•  A sub-process represents a self-contained, composite

activity that can be broken down into smaller units of
work
•  In order to use a sub-process, first it is necessary to
identify groups of related activities
–  those activities which together achieve a particular
goal or generate a particular outcome in the
process model under analysis
BPMN elements
Using Subprocesses

•  First, correlated activities must be identified, i.e. those

activities which collectivity help to achieve a goal or
an specific outcome (encapsulated activities)
•  A subprocess must have a start and end events
•  A subprocess can be Expanded or Collapsed
•  When to use subprocesses
–  When the process achieves a size that is difficult to
read and understand the process
•  When a process is too is considered too big?
–  There are evidences in the literature that a model
with more than 30 elements (activities, gateways
and events) deals to a process difficult to read
BPMN elements
Subprocess expanded
BPMN elements
Subprocess collapsed
BPMN elements
Events

•  Events are used to model

something that happens
•  Start events
–  Tokens are created
•  End events
–  Tokens are destroyed
•  An event that occurs in the middle
of the process is called
intermediated
BPMN elements
Message Event

•  Indicates that a new process instance is triggered with

the arrival of a message

•  An end message event indicates that the process

ends with the sending of a message

•  An intermediate message event indicates that a

message is sent or received
BPMN elements
Send Receive
Message Event
Receive Send Intermediate
Intermediate Message Event
Message Event
Final Remarks

•  BPM is a very powerful area that is calling the attention not only
from academy but also from industry
–  Academically it covers a complete lifecycle with several
challenging research questions that goes from conceptual,
formal to practical levels
–  In recent years research on BPM has been covered many
topics including workflow patterns, exception handingling,
process modeling, etc
–  In industry BPM is being used in several perspectives
•  For process documentation and standardization
•  For process improvement
•  For process automation
•  To achieve CMMI levels
Discussion

Which are the main problems,

challenges regarding process
elicitation and modeling?