From Personal Task Management to End-User Driven Business Process Modeling

Abstract

The need to involve business users in process modeling is largely perceived in the context of Business Process Management systems. This can facilitate the elaboration of consistent process models which are better turned to users' needs and organizational changes. Despite the variety of tools and notations, process modeling remains hardly accessible for business users, who lack advanced technical skills. This paper presents an integrated approach for end-user driven business process modeling which uses web service based activity tracking to generate weakly-structured process models by capturing data on personal task management. These models can be adapted and reused for ad-hoc process support or exported to formal workflows by delivering the business knowledge to process designers and software developers. Interconnection of ad-hoc and formal workflows results in enhanced process flexibility and allows complementation of formal workflows through deviations at runtime. The approach is validated through the Collaborative Task Management (CTM) prototype.

A survey on reuse in the business process management domain

“…Continuing their work, Stoitsev et al (2008c) present an integrated approach for end-user driven business process modelling which uses web service-based activity tracking to generate weakly structured process models by capturing data on personal task management. These models can be adapted and reused for ad hoc process support or exported to formal workflows by delivering the business knowledge to process designers and software developers.…”

Getting users involved in aligning their needs with business processes models and systems

“…The end‐user business process modeling (Stoitsev et al , 2008) is an approach in which business users are active participants in business process modeling using the collaborative task manager (CTM), which provides end‐user development capabilities. In their approach, formal process flows are created based on tasks that different process participants are performing.…”

“…Since the methodology identifies impacts of changes in terms of UIs, end‐users can actively participate because UIs are understood by anyone who interacts with systems. In the work of Stoitsev et al (2008), they have already highlighted that business process management has already perceived that the involvement of business users in process specification can make processes better turned to users' needs and organizational changes. This can, therefore, result in processes that are more consistent and still flexible.…”

ConTask - Using Context-sensitive Assistance to Improve Task-oriented Knowledge Work

“…The tasks within the processes are enriched with information items from the Nepomuk Semantic Desktop (see next section) by user interaction similar to ConTask. Similar work on identifying process patterns but coming from the process management side and embracing task management is the Collaborative Task Management (CTM) approach (Stoitsev et al, 2008). The main difference of both approaches from ConTask is the lack of user observation and PID our system applies and their steps further to apply evolving process patterns in process management.…”