Michael zur Muehlen, Ph.D.Stevens Institute of TechnologyHowe School of Technology ManagementCenter for Business Process InnovationHoboken, New JerseyMichael.zurMuehlen@stevens.edu

Researching StandardsWhat? Why? How? And?

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What’s in a Standard?

Technical Standard: Agreed upon speci!cation for a way of communicating or performing actions.

Internet Standard: Protocols through which people and programs interact over the Internet.

Built on top of TCP/IP, and mostly HTTP

Use of Internet Standards is discretionary:

For developers: Direct choice of which standard to implement

For customers: Indirect choice of which standards-compliant product to use

Users vote with their feet, developers with their hands

First Steps...

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The !rst Internet Standards

were written by graduate students as part of the ARPAnet project

were intended as documents that capture technical discussion

were deliberately called “Request for Comments” (RFC)

were recommendations, rather than normative standards

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“Standards should be discovered, not invented”

Vincent Cerf, in: Haffer, Lyon: “Where the Wizards stay up late”,

1998 p. 254

Today...

Internet Standards are

written by employees of software and hardware companies

describe concepts that may or may not have been implemented yet

are debated in working groups until a stable, immutable (within the speci!c version) speci!cation emerges

are still optional recommendations

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Risks in Standardization

Standards making is risky

Choosing the wrong technology may be counterproductive, incompatible, and lead to lack of adoption

Standards adoption is risky

Choosing the wrong standard may obstruct technology upgrade paths, limit business partner connectivity, and force resource training in (obsolete) technology

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Vignette 1: WfMC/IETF Episode

Theme: Death of a Standards Group

WfMC members tried to start an IETF working group around process integration

IETF bylaws allow for 2 birds-of-a-feathers meeting

Minutes of the second meeting:

“Informal poll: who wants to work on that (very few); something else (slightly more); Lisa Li[ppert] asked if everyone else here was to prevent a WG forming (larger still, but still a minority).”

Established IETF members did not condone what they perceived as “Marketing Garbage” – Working Group did not form

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Genealogy of BPM Standards

question

Observation: IETF rejected the outside proposal by WfMC

members

What could explain this?

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Standardization VenuesStandardization is not standardized

No dominant standards organization that regulates Internet standards (W3C, IETF, OMG, OASIS etc.)

No common set of procedures across different standards bodies (bylaws)

Large areas of domain overlap (both vertically and horizontally)

Government-sanctioned standards organizations often fail, losing power to market consortia [Schoechle 2003]

Cultural clash between design culture striving for “good” architecture and commercial culture striving for quick marketability [Monteiro 1998, zur Muehlen et al. 2005]

The “right” standards body lends legitimacy to an idea [compare Barley and Tolbert 1987]

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“Rough Consensus and Running Code”Sir Tim Berners-Lee in: “Weaving the Web”, 1999

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Mobility of Standards Makers

question

Observation: Standard makers are highly mobile across venues

What could explain this?

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Social Movements: Individuals

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Explaining Standardization Venues

Standards Bodies are not Companies

They can organize around ideologies

Identity = ideology (beliefs) + legitimacy

Competition forces legitimacy

Standards Bodies are Forums for Design Ideas

Individual contributions shape speci!cations

Speci!cations shape attitudes

“Thought Collectives” reject outside ideas

Working Groups are born, merge, and die

If similar groups exist, new groups emerge easier

Resources are !nite

Competition affects cloning

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Vignette 2: W3C Episode

Theme: Maintaining the Values of an Institution

W3C tried to change its IP licensing schema to RAND licensing

More than 2,000 individuals commented on the proposed change

The policy would discriminate against the poor

The policy undermines the “Spirit of the Web”

The policy would be self-defeating for W3C

The proposal is a conspiracy

The committee reversed their position and produced a Royalty-Free proposal

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Standardization Venues

IETF OASIS OMG W3C WfMC

Entrance Barrier Low ($0) Low-High ($250-45,000)

Medium-High ($500-70,0000)

Medium-High ($635-63,500) or

invitation

Medium ($500-5000)or fellowship

WG formation

2 BOF + Charter, approval required

3 members, max cycle 30

days

Ad hoc, DTC charters topics

Only within current W3C activities

Ad hoc, TC charters topics

Procedural Rules Strict Formal Strict Strict Relaxed

IP Rules RAND RAND RAND W3C License Royalty-free license

Conceptual Framework Areas None MDA WS Architecture

WfMC Reference

ModelInterest in BPM None Individual WGs BEIDTF + BPMI WS-CDL Focus

Implementation Required Yes No Yes, not

enforced Yes No

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Research QuestionWe have tried (unsuccessfully) for more than 12 years to standardize how to coordinate business processes across the Internet. Why are these standards missing?

Individual standard makers are joining, leaving, and generally moving between different standards bodies in sometime random seeming paths

Commercial interest is often deliberately silenced in the development of standards

The prevailing economic models of standard making insuf!ciently explain the behavior we witnessed

How can we explain the observed phenomena during the standard making process?

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Research Design

Longitudinal Case Study based on public and restricted archival data and participation in standards venues

Detailed Case Analysis of selected Vignettes

IETF Case

W3C Case

Collected observations (events, incidents, signi!cant behavior) from cases (a la process theory)

Evaluated signi!cant observations both from an economic and an ecological perspective

Documented results as conjectures and testing strategies for further work

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Data CollectionExtracted participant information from public and members-only standards documents

Protocols from standards meetings 1993-2006

Standards documents

Call sheets

Gathered insight through participation

Went to 20+ standards meetings

Participated in numerous phone conferences

Multiple supplementary interviews (in person and via email)

Standards authors

Standards bodies representatives

Contemporary witnesses

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Social Ecology

Phenomena supporting an ecological perspective:

The birth, merger, and death of standards institutions

The creation and survival of institutions depending largely on their legitimacy

Individual actions shaping and shaped by the institutions

Institutional inertia obstructing rapid institutional change and affecting the movement of ideas

Phenomena supporting an economical perspective:

Standards participants joining standards bodies, competing or cooperating based on their perception of market share and market size, their technological competence and their assets

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Developing a Theory of Social Ecology

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Contrasting ExplanationsExample Economical Explanation Ecological Explanation

New industry groups submit their standards to older bodies (for example, IBM et al. submit to OASIS; WfMC submits to IETF)

Vendors need a branded standard that will attract more adopters.

Vendors migrate to habitats that can confer the greatest legitimacy.

A standards effort is rejected by an established institution (for example, IETF prevents the formation of a working group around the WfMC proposal)

The institution doesn’t believe the standard will increase market size.

The institution is protecting its niche; its criteria for rejection are an expression of its values.

Attempts to control IP (for example, the W3C proposal to change IP policy in vendors’ favor)

Economic self-interest of vendors favors privately owned IP.

Companies will try to protect their niches.

Attempts to make IP public (for example, the W3C decision not to change IP policy in vendors’ favor)

Shared IP is in the long run better for companies, as it reduces legal costs associated with disputes and expands markets.

The Internet emerged as an ecosystem where resources are shared, and this ethos persists.

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ConjecturesWorking groups in Internet standard making function as a population ecology

Test: Apply Hannan and Freeman’s techniques to the formation of Working Groups at W3C, IETF etc.

Standard makers function as part of an interactional !eld, in which their actions are interdependent with those of other standard makers

Test: Sequence analysis of standard makers

The bylaws of the standard making bodies are the source of institutional stability in Internet standard making

Test: Study relationship between changes to bylaws and working group formation and dissolution

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Publications

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Some Lessons LearnedData is everything

We had a great dataset and a hunch on how to analyze itA lot of data publicly availableBuilding theory is hard, sometimes you need multiple tries

Present your work before you submit itV 1: Conference DraftV 2: Conference SubmissionMultiple talks & previous paper

Write, rewrite, review, repeatV3: 36 editing passesV4: 56 editing passesV5: 25 editing passesV6: 36 editing passesV7: 19 editing passes

Editors want to help you, not destroy youTake advice seriouslyBe wary of quick !xesAsk for clari!cationDon’t be afraid to change your approach

Going Forward

Analyzing the change of working groups over time

Data from BPMI/OMG working group on BPMN 2001-2006

Studying the change in social network structures over time

Analyzing the internal processes of working groups

35,000+ emails from W3C HTML 5 Working Group

Studying decision-making patterns, topic shifts, and con"ict resolution

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Attendance: Power-Law at work

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0

15

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45

60

75

90

105

120

135

150

# of BPMN meetings attended 2001-2006, all attendees

BPMN Over Time

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Topic Drift

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Thank You - Questions?

Michael zur Muehlen, Ph.D.

Center for Business Process Innovation

Howe School of Technology Management

Stevens Institute of Technology

Castle Point on the Hudson

Hoboken, NJ 07030

Phone: +1 (201) 216-8293

Fax: +1 (201) 216-5385

E-mail: mzurmuehlen@stevens.edu

Web: http://www.stevens.edu/bpm

slides: www.slideshare.net/mzurmuehlen

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