Presentation at ACM 2012 workshop http://acm2012.blogs.dsv.su.se attached to BPM 2012 conference in Tallinn http://bpm2012.ut.ee/ Abstract.Workflow-based systems dominate the theory and practice of Business Process Management (BPM) leaving little space to other directions, including Adaptive Case Management. While there are reasons for such dominance in today's enterprise environment, it is time the BPM community studied this dominance in the light of the requirements of the enterprises of the future. This paper analyzes whether workflow-based systems will be able to satisfy business needs in the future based on the assumption that the essential property of the enterprise of the future is agility. The paper identifies properties that a business process should possess in order to be suitable for employing a workflow-based system to support it. Then, it analyzes whether these properties are compatible with the needs of the enterprise of the future and shows why workflow-based systems may become obsolete in the future.

1. Do workflow-based systems satisfy the
demands of the agile enterprise of the
future?
Ilia Bider - IbisSoft/DSV SU,
Paul Johannesson DSV/SU
Erik Perjons DSV/SU
Preproceedings: http://bit.ly/YlxesC
Postproceedings: http://bit.ly/WHAdOC
Short presentatiion at ACM 2012 workshop:
http://acm2012.blogs.dsv.su.se/
1st workshop on ACM and other non-workflow approaches to BPM
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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2. Motivation
• ACM & non-workflow is relatively small movement
• In the sea of mainstream BPM that sees BP as a
standardized flow of operations
• How to defend the movement against “We can do
the same and even better”, “We have all the same
features”, etc.
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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3. Why WF is a mainstream
• Widespread understanding that BP is about
optimizing the usage of enterprise resources, e.g.,
minimizing the waste – Lean, 6 sigma, etc.
• Standards, UML, BPMN that promote operational
view
• Tool vendors that implements standards
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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4. How to meet the challenge
• Expand in some areas: traditionally working in a
case-based manner - law (enforcement), healthcare,
government
• Show examples where the workflow-paradigm has
failed
• Agree that WF thinking is very good right now, but …
it might not be so in the nearest future …
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5. Plan
1. Investigate what is required to design a
workflowable process
2. Investigate :
Whether it make sense to do so in the highly dynamic
world
Whether a process will be “optimal” in such a world
Whether making all processes optimized do any good
to the enterprise as a whole
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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6. Workflowable process
1. The process can be split into well-defined steps/operations
2. For each step, inputs and outputs are fully formalized
3. It is fully determined what outputs serve as inputs for other
steps
Test spec
RE spec D spec Code
Reguirements Design Coding Test
Test results Test results
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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7. Workflowable process
Test spec
RE spec D spec Code
Reguirements Design Coding Test
Test results Test results
3. Execution of each step requires only its formalized inputs
4. Two steps are not allowed to be executed simultaneously (in
parallel) if outputs from one of them serve as inputs for
another
5. Each step is executed by a special group or one person
specialization
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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8. 1. Do we have time to design
workflowable processes
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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9. Do we have time to design …
We might not have it
DSV SU/IbisSoft
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10. 2. Is Workflowable process really
optimal?
Test spec
RE spec D spec Code
Reguirements Design Coding Test
Test results Test results
3. Execution of each step requires only its formalized inputs
4. Two steps are not allowed to be executed simultaneously (in
parallel) if outputs from one of them serve as inputs for
another
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11. 3. Is optimization of processes good
for the enterprise as a whole ?
Is specialization harmless?
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12. Manning of business processes -
traditional style
Knowledge on current needs/problems can be obtained by
participants of the boundary processes who not normally participate
in the development process
Shall we arrange additional processes for the to transfer knowledge?
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13. Manning of business processes -
cross-manning
Main characteristics
Multiple goals
Heterogeneous teams
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14. Additional reading
• Process thinking for business agility: http://bit.ly/Nouub3
• Bider I., Perjons E. Preparing for the era of cloud computing:
Towards a framework for selecting business process support
services. Proceedings of BPMDS 2012.,http://bit.ly/O8KrgQ
• Bider I., Bellinger G., Perjons E. Modeling an Agile Enterprise:
Reconciling Systems and Process Thinking. Proceedings of
PoEM 2011, LNBIP 92, Springer, 2011:
http://bit.ly/wZBOwApp.
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15. Thank you for your attention!
Main contact
Ilia Bider, DSV SU/IbisSoft
Email: ilia@dsv.su.se
ilia@ibissoft.se
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