bpmn2012 keynote slides by jan recker
DESCRIPTION
slides from my keynote address at the BPMN 2012TRANSCRIPT
BPMN Research:BPMN Research:What we Know and What we Don’t
KnowProfessor Dr Jan ReckerProfessor Dr Jan Recker
Information Systems SchoolScience and Engineering Faculty
Queensland University of TechnologyQ y gyBrisbane, Australia
Main MessagesBPMN scholarship has matured, which is why we need to identify truly novel research problems.
Research should shift from explaining Knowns to exploring Unknowns.
We need to be Boundary Spanners to bridge the different BPMN communities.BPMN communities.
Community Understanding, Leverage and Engagement are some of the pathways that can aid the further development ofsome of the pathways that can aid the further development of this research field.
2
AgendaLooking backward: Reviewing BPMN ResearchLooking forward: Exploring Unknown Unknownsg p g U ULooking inwards: Researching the “Right Things”Q&AQ&A
3
AgendaLooking backward: Reviewing BPMN ResearchLooking forward: Exploring Unknown Unknownsg p g U ULooking inwards: Researching the “Right Things”Q&AQ&A
4
BPMN Research Publications (1000+)
Peak Maturity or
140160180
160018002000
ons
ns
of hypeMaturity or
Retirement?
100120140
1000120014001600
publ
icat
i
f cita
tion
406080
400600800
1000
mbe
r of p
umbe
r of
Early movers
02040
0200400
NumN
u
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
Citations Number of publications
5
Popular themes in BPMN researchPopular themes in BPMN researchHow C
Form
al How
does it work? How
do we
How do we extend
it?
Can we
scale it?
Mat
urity
Fri
cal
How should
do emake
it better? Can
we Can we
ne o
f M
Em
pir
How isit
should it be
used?
under-stand
it?
we lever-age it?
Lin
aly
tica
l
How good
used?
…
An
a is it?
6The early years Current efforts
2005-2007 2011-...2008-2010We’re up and running!
Which papers have impact?
332350
400
100%
120%
rs
250
300
80%
Pape
rs
utio
n of
Pap
er
Zone of Zone of Zone of Zone of Zone of indifferenceZone of indifference181
150
200
40%
60%
Num
ber o
f
ulat
ive
Dis
trib
uignorance(57%)
ignorance(57%)
impact(2%)
impact(2%)
Zone of indifference(41%)
Zone of indifference(41%)
105
77
43
15 8
50
100
20%
Cum
u
15 800 1-3 4-10 11-19 20-49 50-99 100+
0%
Cumulative Distribution Number of Papers Regular power distribution
7
Which papers have impact?Which papers have impact?Authors Title Year Citations
P Wohed, W Van der Aalst, M Dumas…
On the suitability of BPMN for business process modelling 2006 181
RM Dijkman, M Dumas, C Ouyang
Semantics and analysis of business process models in BPMN 2008 171Dumas, C Ouyang BPMN 2008 171
B List, B KorherrAn evaluation of conceptual business process modelling languages 2006 141
C Ouyang, M Dumas, AHM Ter Hofstede… From BPMN process models to BPEL web services 2006 127AHM Ter Hofstede… From BPMN process models to BPEL web services 2006 127M zur Muehlen,J Recker
How much language is enough? Theoretical and practical use of the business process modeling notation 2008 121
C Ouyang, WMP Van Der Aalst M Dumas Translating BPMN to BPEL 2006 109Der Aalst, M Dumas… Translating BPMN to BPEL 2006 109
A Ghose, G Koliadis Auditing business process compliance 2007 107On the translation between BPMN and BPEL: Conceptual mismatch between process modeling
J Recker, J Mendlingp p g
languages 2006 106A Awad, G Decker, M Weske
Efficient compliance checking using BPMN-Q and temporal logic 2008 96
J Recker, M Indulska, How good is BPMN really? Insights from theory and
8
J ec e , du s a,M Rosemann, P Green
o good s ea y s g ts o t eo y a dpractice 2006 92
Work that defined the BPMNWork that defined the BPMN research communityy
Analysis of BPMN’s modeling capabilities
Formalization of BPMN Semantics
BPMN use in practice All well-researched andwell-solved by now
BPMN-to-BPEL
BPMN and Compliance
9
Some tentative conclusionsSome tentative conclusions
Several key problems are “solved” (at least academically)Several key problems are solved (at least academically)Capabilities in-theory and in-useTranslationTranslationSemantics
Increased maturity of the field increases demand for new research to avoid retirement as a research topic
Novel contributionsAd d th d l i l d th ti l iAdvanced methodological and theoretical rigorBlue ocean problems and topics?
BPMN is becoming a commodity – not only as a standard but alsoBPMN is becoming a commodity not only as a standard but also in research
Is there time to do something new? And if so, how do we get there?
10
AgendaLooking backward: Reviewing BPMN ResearchLooking forward: Exploring Unknown Unknownsg p g U ULooking inwards: Researching the “Right Things”Q&AQ&A
11
Th A U k U kThere Are Unknown Unknowns
http://www youtube com/watch?v=jtkUO8NpI8412
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v jtkUO8NpI84
I li ti f BPMN hImplications for BPMN research
Unknown Unknown
m to
Knowns Unknowns
Moving beyond the from
ion
tat
ion
K K
Moving beyond the research comfort zoneti
ng
anat
ipl
ora
KnownKnowns
KnownUnknownsSh
iftex
pla
exp
S e
13
BPMN Research ExamplesBPMN Research Examples- Known Knowns
BPMN is used selectively in organizations, and not to its full extent.
BPMN can be mapped to executable semantics.
There are advantages and disadvantages of BPMN in comparison toThere are advantages and disadvantages of BPMN in comparison to other modeling approaches.
BPMN is implemented in different ways by process engines.
M d l t t l it i l t i fl h llModel structure, complexity, size, colour etc influence how well participants understand a BPMN model.
14
BPMN Research ExamplesBPMN Research Examples- Unknown Knowns
Organizations use BPMN differently for different projects (redesign, implementation compliance)implementation, compliance).
The individual and organizational benefits that flow from BPMN use.g
Defining and implementing workflow systems starting with BPMN models.
The BPMN usage differences between experts and novices.
15
BPMN Research ExamplesBPMN Research Examples- Known Unknowns
The level of errors in BPMN modeling is still high. How do we change that and what is the true impact?
What is the best way to apply BPMN for process modeling?
The use of BPMN in cultures with different aptitudes for forms, shapes and symbolic expressions.
The process of BPMN development.
The impact of new technologies for BPMN modeling.
16
BPMN Research ExamplesBPMN Research Examples- Unknown Unknowns
How do we use BPMN for different, future emerging purposes?
What extensions to the standard will be required in the future?
Will BPMN have a place in post-process paradigms?
How will the BPMN community and its impact evolve?
The influence of post-GFC, post-Greece on XXX…
17
How do we shift our thinking?
Analysis and selective expansion of three key research resources
Choice of method:Diversify: expand portfolio of research approachesDiversify: expand portfolio of research approaches
Consolidate: analyse the analyses
Integrate: connect empirical findings to design, design as theory, theory as design
Choice of theory:Create: Build theories germane to the BPMN context
Expand: extend reference theories through new constructs, relationships or boundary conditions
Critique: assist paradigm shifts through conclusive falsification
Choice of expertise:pSelect: identify and differentiate different bases of BPMN expertise
Enable: include and integrate community members
Transfer: allow expertise and knowledge to permeate boundaries of organizations orTransfer: allow expertise and knowledge to permeate boundaries of organizations or communities 18
AgendaLooking backward: Reviewing BPMN ResearchLooking forward: Exploring Unknown Unknownsg p g U ULooking inwards: Researching the “Right Things”ThingsQ&A
19
What is the “right thing” to g gresearch?
“A central mission of scholars is to conduct research that both advances a scientific discipline and enlightens practice in a professional domain.”
Herbert Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial
Often argued to be a knowledge transfer problem:Academic journals not read and not understood
Practitioner magazines too lightweight and ‘fluffy’, lacking credibility
My view is that the knowledge transfer lens is misleading; and a boundaryMy view is that the knowledge transfer lens is misleading; and a boundary spanning perspective potentially more fruitful.
Th h it h bli ti t b d iThus, our research community has an obligation to occupy a boundary spanning role.
What does boundary spanning y p gmean?
Boundary spanners are roles in and across communities that perform a variety of important roles such as
Sharer of expertiseSharer of expertise
Representor instead of Gatekeeper
Advice and trust broker
Scout, ambassador, sentry and guardian
Illustration by contrast:Illustration by contrast:Academics continuously engage in practices that produce knowledge and new practices of relevance and interest to academia
Develops a knowledge-based advantage (the raison d’etre for academics)
These traditional practices also continuously reproduce and strengthen the boundaries to other fields
Boundary spanning emerges through the identification of a new join t field
Towards Boundary SpanningTowards Boundary Spanning- Three Pathways with Examples
1. Understand the communitiesDevelop an understanding of the topics and phenomena of interest and importance to different stakeholder groups
22. Leverage knowledge from the communitiesUtilize research and insights from other communities in own researchresearch
3 Engage the communities in collaborative work3. Engage the communities in collaborative workInclude communities in participatory research
23
Understand the communities- Delphi study on current Issues (2008)
Academics IT/BPM Vendors BPM PractitionersStandardisation Standardisation Training
Model-drivenprocess execution
Model-driven process execution
Standardisation
Modelling views Process discovery Value ofg yprocess modelling
Flexibility Value ofprocess modelling
Governanceprocess modelling
Compliance Model management Modelling level of detailMethodology Modelling level of detail Model management
Indulska, M., Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Green, P. (2009): Business Process Modeling: Current Issues and Future Challenges. In P. van Eck, J. Gordijn, and R. Wieringa (eds.):
24
g j g ( )Advanced Information Systems Engineering – CAiSE 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 5565. Springer, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 501-514.
Understand the communities - Delphi study on future Challenges (by 2013)
Academics Vendors PractitionersModel-driven
process executionStandardisation Value of
process modellingprocess execution process modellingMethodology Value of
process modellingTraining
Compliance Model-drivenprocess execution
Buy-in
Service integration Training GovernanceService integration Training GovernanceModel integration Model management AdoptionStandardisation Service orientation Business-IT-Alignment
Indulska, M., Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Green, P. (2009): Business Process Modeling: Current Issues and Future Challenges. In P. van Eck, J. Gordijn, and R. Wieringa (eds.):
25
g j g ( )Advanced Information Systems Engineering – CAiSE 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 5565. Springer, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 501-514.
Current boundary spanning isCurrent boundary spanning is limited at best
Issues ChallengesIssues Challenges
P A V20 (2) 45 (4)
P A V16 (1) 62 (5)
P A V P A V
37 (4) 41 (3)
Indulska, M., Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Green, P. (2009): Business Process Modeling: Current Issues and Future Challenges. In P. van Eck, J. Gordijn, and R. Wieringa (eds.):
26
g j g ( )Advanced Information Systems Engineering – CAiSE 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 5565. Springer, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, pp. 501-514.
Leverage communitiesBuild research collaborations that include representatives from different communities
Example: Apromore Initiative (www.apromore.org)p p ( p g)
Combines researchers from 7 universities,from computer science, information systems,management science, and software engineeringg g g
Sponsored by fed. government AND industry
QUT Team:4 d i f lt4 academic faculty
1 Post-doc
2 PhD students
2 solution architects
2 senior developers
1 business analyst
In-kindprovision by
industry partner
In-kindprovision by
industry partnery
Various research assistants and graduate students 27
an open‐source highly scalable SaaS platform to
Apromorean open source, highly scalable SaaS platform tomanage large (BPMN) process model collections
variants management / organization
merging
80%refactoringre-use similarity
search
0100010110100101 mining Process model
repository querying
28La Rosa, M., Reijers, H.A., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Dijkman, R.M., Mendling, J., Dumas, M., and Garcia-Banuelos, L. "APROMORE: An Advanced Process Model Repository," Expert Systems with Applications (38:6) 2011, pp 7029-7040.
C St d S ICase Study: Suncorp Insurance
Product Dev Sales Service Claims 500
stepsp
30Home
Motor
variationsCommercial
Liability
CTP / WC
• Estimated total number of process steps: 15,000p p ,• Total number of models: 3,000+
Engage communitiesInclude different communities directly in the research processpat one or several stages of the research lifecyclelifecycle
ExamplesIntegrate: Research on use AND development of the BPMN standardCommunicate: Research on the use of BPMN in practice
Engage Communitiesg g- through integration
Traditional ExtendedTraditional research
model
Extendedresearch
model
Recker, J., Indulska, M., Green, P. (2007): Extending Representational Analysis: BPMN User and Developer Perspectives. In G. Alonso, P. Dadam and M. Rosemann (eds.): Business Process Management – BPM 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4714. Springer, Brisbane, Australia, pp. 384-399.
Interviewing the BPMN team
Proforma
Popkin / Telelogic
IBM
MegaMega
Recker, J., Indulska, M., Green, P. (2007): Extending Representational Analysis: BPMN User and Developer Perspectives. In G. Alonso, P. Dadam and M. Rosemann (eds.): Business Process Management – BPM 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4714. Springer, Brisbane, Australia, pp. 384-399.
Global 360
Research & Findings
33Recker, J., Indulska, M., Green, P. (2007): Extending Representational Analysis: BPMN User and Developer Perspectives. In G. Alonso, P. Dadam and M. Rosemann (eds.): Business Process Management – BPM 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4714. Springer, Brisbane, Australia, pp. 384-399.
Example FeedbackProblems in capturing Business Rules
Transfer
Developer feedback:
Voiced strong support that in the future there will be a better
TransferpossibleCustomer logged on to
Conduct transfer
conducted
Business Rule Editor (excerpt)Business Rule 1
integration between process modelling and business rule specification.
[…] and currently within the OMG, there’s quite a lot of work on
Customer specifiestransfer
Check feasibility
possibleCustomer logged on to InternetBanking
If transferAmount < threshold(country) Then accept Else reject
Business Rule Library (excerpt)
Business Rule 1business rules being done. […] the idea is that certainly, rules will be kind of built better or at least more, made to fit into BPMN at least in terms of the underlying models, the meta models. Exactly where we fit it in on the notational side, that’s something they need
Transferimpossible Display
Country Currency Threshold
Business Rule 1transferAmount
Germany EUR (€) 12,000U.S.A.United Kingdom
USD ($)GBP (£)
15,00010,000
to work on in the future, so, we’re open to this and it seemed a little beyond our scope at the time we were doing it to include too much on business rule side of things.
errormessage
Error messagedisplayed
Recker, J., Indulska, M., Green, P. (2007): Extending Representational Analysis: BPMN User and Developer Perspectives. In G. Alonso, P. Dadam and M. Rosemann (eds.): Business Process Management – BPM 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 4714. Springer, Brisbane, Australia, pp. 384-399.
Engage Communitiesg g- through result debates
Re-frame research in different articulations, reports and formats and invite discussions, critiques and involvement from “the others”.
Easily and conveniently achievable: Twitter, Blogs, community magazines
Frame for discussion, not for education!
Impact effects cannot be neglected:Community interest paper downloads problem definition academic interest citations
Example: “How much language is enough?”
BPMN use is not as extensive as we thought it is
zur Muehlen, M., and Recker, J. "How Much Language is Enough? Theoretical and Practical Use of the Business Process Modeling Notation," in: Advanced Information Systems Engineering - CAiSE 2008, M. Léonard and Z. Bellahsène (eds.), Springer, Montpellier, France, 2008, pp. 465-479.
Users are making deliberate gtrade-offs
Number ofmodels that shared the
framed constructs
zur Muehlen, M., and Recker, J. "How Much Language is Enough? Theoretical and Practical Use of the Business Process Modeling Notation," in: Advanced Information Systems Engineering - CAiSE 2008, M. Léonard and Z. Bellahsène (eds.), Springer, Montpellier, France, 2008, pp. 465-479.
Engage Communitiesg g- through results
Recap: Main MessagesWe need to identify truly novel research questions to maintain BPMN research momentum and avoid being a fashion wave.
Increased maturity also means stronger demands for research rigor and methodological quality.
We can achieve this by shifting our research focus from explanation to exploration. This will require a shift in theory,explanation to exploration. This will require a shift in theory, method and expertise utilization.
We will maintain relevance and impact by more stronglyWe will maintain relevance and impact by more strongly assuming a role of boundary spanners.
40
Prof. Jan Recker, PhD
Woolworths Chair of Retail InnovationInformation Systems SchoolScience and Engineering FacultyQ l d U i it f T h lQueensland University of Technology
e [email protected] www janrecker comw www.janrecker.comt janrecker