Importance of executable processes and BPMN

Importance of executable processes and BPMNAlexander Samarin for LAMS EPFL

May 2014, Lausanne

Importance of executable processes and BPMN v3 2

• A digital enterprise architect– from a programmer to a systems architect – have created systems which work without me

• WHY I do what I do– I believe that many improvements (“sooner, better, cheaper, more

flexible”) in operational excellence and strategy execution are achievable with reasonable efforts and commodity tools

• HOW I do what I do– architecting synergy between strategies, technologies, tools and

best practices for client’s unique case and transfer the knowledge• WHAT is the result of my work for clients

– less routine work, less stress, higher performance, higher security, less risk, higher predictability of results, better operations, and liberating the business potentials for innovations

About me

© A. Samarin 2014


• Context • Why BPM is critically important for EA?• Enterprise as a system of processes• The power of executable processes

© A. Samarin 2014

Agenda


– It is not about “just the website”, “online services” or “transactions”

– Everything becomes digital: products, information, content, documents, records, processes, money, rights, communications

– If digital then intangible thus news tools and new execution speed “immediately”

– Digital things are at new scale – petabytes and exabytes– With this new speed and scale, there is no time for human

intervention and errors in routine operations and at interfaces

© A. Samarin 2014

Digital age


• Experience shows that business wants separate requests for change to be implemented quickly in existing IT solutions and systems

• These changes are typically small (from the point of view of the business) and unpredictable (from the point of view of the IT)

• To carry out these changes easily and in a managed way, business systems must be properly architected / designed / engineered

© A. Samarin 2014

Business reality

Importance of executable processes and BPMN v3

• Different estimations of the development/maintenance life-cycle cost ratio

© A. Samarin 2014 6

Solutions need to be adaptive

2 – Estimated average in the IT industry

maintenance

development 80 %

20 %

2

40 %

60 %

1

95 %

5 %3

3 – A real scenario (governmental client)

1 – Estimated by an IT staff member


• Co-existence of many artefacts– vision, plans, processes,

capabilities, services, etc.• Dynamic and interrelated • Not all relationships between

artefacts are explicit• Not all relationships between

artefacts are interpreted consistently by different staff members and systems

• Small changes can be very destructive


Complexity


• There are two different sources of complexity: – natural as we use more and more complex products produced by

more and more interlinked companies and – undesired as we do things with inadequate tools, without using

the best available knowledge, via communicating in not the “same” language, by reinventing the wheel, following contradictory recommendations, drawing a process and executing something else, etc.

• The purpose of enterprise architecture (EA)– guide solution architecture to follow the natural complexity to

avoid adding undesired complexity– promote the use explicit and executable techniques to reduce

the natural complexity– “liberate” resources to better handle the natural complexity

© A. Samarin 2014

Managing complexity



© A. Samarin 2014

Agenda


• EA coordinates people, processes and technologies in 4D1. Business domain span (organisational unit, segment, enterprise,

supply chain, government, country, region, continent, …)2. Architecture span (business, data, application, technology, security,

information, …)3. Time span (solution life-cycle, technology life-cycle, tool life-cycle,

project life-cycle, enterprise life-cycle, …)4. Sector span (common patterns in unique processes from different

sectors)

© A. Samarin 2014

EA is a systemic coordinator

Importance of executable processes and BPMN v3 11© A. Samarin 2014

EA views: business domains vs time span


• There are no: – common dictionary / terminology / reference model – common recognition – common certification – common professional organisation

• Considered as too bureaucratic, “ivory tower”, expensive and useless paperwork

• A lot of fight among (often self-proclaimed) “enterprise architects”

• You may become an “enterprise architect” in 4 days• So far, we, enterprise architects, are alchemists © A. Samarin 2014

Enterprise Architecture is not a “normal” profession yet

Importance of executable processes and BPMN v3© A. Samarin 2014 13

BPM is a tool for improving enterprise business performance

The theoryBPM as a discipline (use processes to manage an enterprise)

The toolsBPM as software:BPM suite (BPMS)

The practiceAny process-centric enterprise has some BPM (as discipline and tool), but how can we industrialise this BPM?

A natural evolution of BPR, Lean, ISO 9001, 6 Sigma

The aim is to have a single description of business processes:- model in design- input for project planning and execution- executable program for coordination of work- documentation for all staff members- basis for management decisions

An enterprise portfolio of the business processes as well as the practices and tools for governing the design, execution and evolution of this portfolio

A multitude of tools “handle” processes

© A. Samarin 2014 Importance of executable processes and BPMN v3 14

Be ready for common (mis-)understanding


• Enterprise functioning can be considered as business activity flows spanning the applications, employees, customers and partners within and beyond the boundaries of the enterprise

• Business activity is a unit of work • A business process is an explicitly-defined coordination

for guiding the purposeful enactment of business activities• Process-based disciplines (TQM/QMS, BPR, TPS,

6Sigma, BPM, etc.) exploit the concept of business processes for the better management of the enterprise functioning in support of the enterprise goals

© A. Samarin 2014

BPM definitions (1)


• Business Process Management (BPM) is a process-based discipline involving any combination of 1. modeling, 2. automation/implementation, 3. execution, 4. control, 5. measurement and 6. optimization

• of business processes

© A. Samarin 2014

BPM definitions (2)


• An enterprise is a complex, dynamic and adaptive system; one can improve it by:– measuring – observing – deciding – implementing

BPM reference model:Improvement loop

1

2

3

4

© A. Samarin 2014


BPM reference model:Process-based disciplines

© A. Samarin 2014


BPM reference model:Process-oriented view of an enterprise

(before BPM)

© A. Samarin 2014


BPM reference model:Process-oriented view of an enterprise

(with BPM)

© A. Samarin 2014


BPM reference model:BPM suite components


BPM reference model:BPM suite components (extended list)


• Let us see at the TOGAF layers: (values are approximate and calculated on number of non-trivial issues)– 60 % of business architecture– 50 % of data/information architecture– 70 % of application architecture– 20 % of technology architecture

© A. Samarin 2014

Does BPM help with 50% of EA?


• Events• Roles• Data structures• Documents• Rules• Audit trails• KPIs• Processes• Services

© A. Samarin 2014

BPM artifacts

KPIs

Processes Services

Events

Roles Data structures

Documents

Rules

Human “workflow”

Audit trails


• Who (roles) is doing What (business objects), When (coordination of activities), Why (business rules), How (business activities) and with Which Results (performance indicators)

• Make these relationships explicit and executable

What you model is what you execute

“The map is the app”

© A. Samarin 2014

Business processes are complex relationships between artefacts


• BPM, by revealing the artefacts and the relationships between them, provides the necessary context (e.g. granularity) for the definition of services

• SOA provides recommendations for the implementation, execution and governance of services

• BPM provides a mechanism for the explicit and executable assembling of bigger services from smaller ones


Synergy between BPM and SOA (1) – structuring relationships


• The relationship between services and processes is “recursive” – All processes are services– Some operations of a service can be implemented as a process– A process includes services

in its implementation




• Each enterprise is a complex, dynamic, unique and “recursive” relationship between services and processes– Services can be replaced by processes– Processes can be replaced by services– Some of them are moved to clouds



service process


Synergy between BPM and SOA (4) –from legacy application to processes

and services

Monolithic application

GUI screen 2

GUI screen 1

GUI screen 3

Business logic

Business object “Partner”

persistence

Business object “Competition”

persistence

Business object “Event”

persistence

BPM/SOA modular solutionBusiness logic

serviceInteractive service 1

Interactive service 2

Interactive service 3

Coordination service

Business object “Partner” persistence

service

Business object “Competition”

persistence service

Business object “Event” persistence

service


Synergy between BPM and SOA (5) –no applications – just coordination of

services



© A. Samarin 2014

Agenda


• In the context of enterprise functioning, business activities must be coordinated

• Various coordination techniques– template-based– state-based – event-based– role-based – rule-based or decision-based or intelligence-based – managerial (tacit knowledge)– community-based– instance-based or inter-process– resource-based or life-cycle-based– goal-based

© A. Samarin 2014

Enterprise as a system of processes (1)


• Coordination maybe strong (e.g. as in the army) or weak (e.g. as in an amateurs football team)

• Coordination maybe implicit or explicit • Coordination maybe declarative (laws) and imperative

(orders)• Based on coordination, let us think about “levels of

cohesion” between activities and thus find out coordination constructs (in addition to activities)1. process patterns (coordination within processes)2. processes3. cluster of processes (coordination between processes)4. system of processes (coordination between clusters of processes)

© A. Samarin 2014

Enterprise as a system of processes (2)


• Business case: typical “claim processing” process – claim, repair, control, invoicing, and assurance to pay

© A. Samarin 2014

Process fragments – patterns

SI

PAR

SI

IPS

Click for animation

• Business concern: Interactions between two independent parties – public administration and partner (citizen, local business, etc.)

• Logic– partner submits some documents (including forms) to

administration– administration checks those documents– administration may request partner to provide more documents or

to carry out some corrections– administration checks those documents again– and so on


Process pattern:Submission Interface (SI)


SI animated diagram

Click for animation


• Simple event-based (which looks like a state machine)

© A. Samarin 2014

Coordination between processes (1)


Coordination between processes (2)

1. state-machine2. synchronous invocation3. asynchronous invocation4. fire and forget5. parallel processes6. co-processes (pattern SI)


• CLOPs are usually functional processes which are implemented a particular business function, e.g. Field Services

• And a “halo” of extra processes1. monitoring 2. operating 3. governance

© A. Samarin 2014

CLuster Of Processes (CLOP)


Enabler group, supporting group and customer group of clusters


Is a system of processes like a PCB?


Implicit coordination between CLOPs (1)






Functional view at a system of processes (1)







© A. Samarin 2014

Agenda


• Situation– a company (3rd world-wide biggest in its sector) has about 800

semi-independent business units (BU); 130+ ERPs; 5 000 apps – the strategy of the company has two contradictory objectives 1)

“Make the diversity efficient” and 2) “Standardize wherever it bring value”

– several company-wide IT initiatives to bring standard solutions to all BUs have failed

– as all BUs have different level of computerization, a standard solution from the IT department is not good for everyone

© A. Samarin 2014

Anisotropic enterprise and shared services (1)

BU1 BU2 BU3 Standardsolution

Level of computerization


Anisotropic enterprise and shared services (2)

BU1 BU2 BU3

Level of computerization

A CBB BAC

1) Standardsolution is based on processes and shared services

2) Each BU is moving to platform-based architecture


• From disparate IT applications to a business execution platform which will “liberate” people for business innovations

• Agile (with the pace of business) provisioning of solutions• Step-by-step technical transformation in two interrelated

and intermixed streams:1. Disassemble into services2. Assemble via processes

• Business evolution to drive technical transformation• Combine various tactics: assemble, rent, buy, build,

outsource, centralised vs. kept locally, standardised, re-engineered or automated

© A. Samarin 2014

Legacy application architecture modernisation


Disassemble a legacy ERP into services

Legacy ERP functionality

DM service B

DM service A

DM service C

Industrial ECMIndustrial ERP

HR

Fin

ProcurementBusiness logic

suite (BRM)

Coordination suite (BPM)

Specific service 1

Specific service 2

Specific service 3

In-house development

10-15 % 10-15 %20-40 %10-20 %

Industrial generic suites Industrial specific tools

Event management

…

20-30 %

Note: Specified values are just estimations


• Make a platform with common capabilities• Delivery unique solutions via processes and services

• Examples:– E-government– Healthcare

© A. Samarin 2014

Other examples for processes + services

A2A1 A3

Platform

S2 …S1

S3

FunctionalityDelivery by solutions Delivery by applications

Scope


• First executable BPMN processes• 10+ years on the BPM market• Version 7 is just announced• Intalio Create is a companion to Intalio BPM• Intalio want to merge predefined processes and ad-hoc

processes

© A. Samarin 2014

Executable processes from Intalio


Variant 1 – classic (one template is used for many instances)


Variant 2 – tailoring (a template is adjusted for each instance)


Variant 3 – reactive (no initial template and next activity is selected based on

the current situation)


Variant 4 – proactive planning (similar to variant 3, but a few next activities [fragment] are executed together)


Variant 5 – scenario-based (similar to variant 4, but a few scenarios are

considered)

Process fragments are used; those may be patterns


• Customer value delivery– Better fit to the customer experience because it is be considered as a

process (http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/06/practical-process-patterns-cxaap.html ).

– Higher business agility (speed-to-market) because many of improvements are anticipated by design (seehttp://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_8.html ).

– Quicker adoption of best business practices (i.e. patterns – see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/search/label/practical%20process%20patterns ) and in-house innovations.

– Higher quality of service because an interaction with a customer may happen at any point in a process (not just from the front-office) and all exchanges between an employee and a customer are traceable (seehttp://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/04/bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor-centric-bpm.html ).

© A. Samarin 2014

How can a company benefit from a BPM initiative? (1)

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/06/practical-process-patterns-cxaap.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/06/practical-process-patterns-cxaap.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_8.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_8.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/search/label/practical%20process%20patterns

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/search/label/practical%20process%20patterns

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/04/bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor-centric-bpm.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/04/bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor-centric-bpm.html


• Operational excellence– Collection of objective performance measurements.– Total transparency and traceability.– Real-time view on operations for various roles.– Proactive risk management and mitigation as it is based on processes (see

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/search/label/ERM ).– Predictability of operations including automatic detection of performance

bottlenecks ( see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2010/03/linkedin-how-do-we-measure-work-flow.html ).

– Better information security (see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/04/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor.html ).

– Objective and predictive balancing of workload.– Compliance by design.– Ability to quickly improve and repair processes (see

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/04/bpm-for-developers-improve-agility-of.html ).

© A. Samarin 2014


http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/search/label/ERM

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2010/03/linkedin-how-do-we-measure-work-flow.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2010/03/linkedin-how-do-we-measure-work-flow.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/04/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/04/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/04/bpm-for-developers-improve-agility-of.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/04/bpm-for-developers-improve-agility-of.html


• Link between the strategy and its execution– Provisioning a powerful company-wide governance capability because a

company is a system of processes (see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.no/2014/03/enterprise-as-system-of-processes.html ).

– E2E incremental improvements can be carried out in accordance with business pace and business priorities (http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.no/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_8.html ).

– Faster path to a digital company (see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/02/towards-paperless-or-digital-or-less.html ).

– Better impact analysis of changes because of explicit linking between events, rules, roles, documents, KPIs, etc.

– Provisioning a solid foundation for enterprise architecture because BPM defines a lot for enterprise architecture. (see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_11.html ).

© A. Samarin 2014


http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.no/2014/03/enterprise-as-system-of-processes.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.no/2014/03/enterprise-as-system-of-processes.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.no/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_8.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.no/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_8.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/02/towards-paperless-or-digital-or-less.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2013/02/towards-paperless-or-digital-or-less.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_11.html

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.ch/2014/05/ideas-for-bpmshift-delenda-est-vendor_11.html


• Boosting employee motivation– By eliminating manual, tedious work, people focus on higher value (core

business value-added intellectual) activities.– Finally, BPM allows staff to focus on more added-value work.– Better visibility on what people and others are doing in the company.– More accurate job descriptions and fact‐based performance evaluation

metrics.– Improving working relationships by common language between various

roles (primary between business and IT).– Organisational structure is derived from processes (with fine-turning

around talents).– Smoother change management because of transparent design,

transparent decisions, transparent execution which make people more comfortable with changes.

© A. Samarin 2014



• QUESTIONS?

• Personal website: http://www.samarin.biz• Blog http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamarin• E-mail: [email protected]• Twitter: @samarin • Mobile: +41 76 573 40 61• Book: www.samarin.biz/book

Thanks

© A. Samarin 2014

http://www.samarin.biz/

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/

http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/

http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamarin

http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandersamarin

mailto:[email protected]

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Importance of executable processes and BPMN

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