Towards dynamic processes-of-business processes: a new understanding

Abstract

PurposeThe main purpose of this work is to overcome the difficulty to manage large, dynamic business processes formed from the complicated interplay of business processes of distinct organizations, which take part of strategic alliances of organizations (joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions) and have their software systems as part of complex, large software-intensive systems called Systems of Systems (SoS). Hence, the authors introduce the novel concept of Processes-of-Business Processes (PoP), deepening on their characteristics and related key terms.Design/methodology/approachBased on the systematically retrieved and analyzed literature and on the authors’ experience from research/industrial projects, the authors defined PoP and have applied them in the Brazilian public health SoS, which involve several organizations and their business processes and their independent software systems as well.FindingsProvided by PoP, a new understanding of the large, dynamic business processes of alliances of organizations is fundamental to advance both the state of the art and the state of the practice on business process management.Research limitations/implicationsThe adoption of PoP in other real-world scenarios is still required to get quantitative evidence.Practical implicationsThe adoption of PoP can certainly contribute to the success of new businesses and even promoting sustainability and longevity of SoS, which are in fact deeply impacted by business processes.Originality/valueThe concept of PoP can change the mindset of the research community and practitioners about how large, dynamic business processes should be seen and further managed.

M-PoP: leveraging the systematic modeling of processes-of-business processes

“…A PoP refers to a set of constituent business processes (or simply constituent processes) that communicate with each other to reach the business goals of an alliance of organizations, i.e. to accomplish one or more missions ( PoP missions ) (Cagnin and Nakagawa, 2021). Constituent processes refer to the business processes of organizations or of their sectors/departments when these are independent/autonomous; also, such constituent processes can be PoP themselves.…”

“…This step (Identification of PoP abstract elements) identifies and describes the elements of the abstract PoP (or PoP abstract elements) using information received as input. Our previous study (Cagnin and Nakagawa, 2021) introduced and defined the concept of Processes-of-Business Processes (PoP), deepening its characteristics and related key terms. This step addresses how to suitably and completely specify each PoP element considering its particularities.…”

“…In this scenario, Processes-of-Business Processes (or simply PoP) refer to large, complex, and dynamic business processes that involve several organizations with their constituent business processes and associated constituent systems of a SoS (Cagnin and Nakagawa, 2021). As PoP are enacted through SoS, these processes present similar characteristics to SoS but at business process level (Cagnin and Nakagawa, 2021): (1) operational independence (each constituent process is independent and operates even when it is disassociated from PoP); (2) management independence (each constituent process is managed by a given organization even when it takes part in a PoP); ( 3) distribution (constituent processes are distributed in the alliance of organizations and interoperate with each other through messages); (4) emergent behavior (PoP's behaviors emerge as a result of the synergistic collaboration of constituent processes); (5) continuous improvement (PoP are under constant changes due to modifications in the strategic business goals, sometimes requiring inclusion, removal, or even replacement of constituent processes); and (6) dynamic reconfiguration (PoP change at run-time to ensure their stability when faults or unexpected behaviors in the constituent processes occur). These unique characteristics of PoP distinguish them from "traditional" business processes (even those that involve different organizations), and as a consequence, can bring challenges for their accurate modeling.…”

Cenários Abstratos de Tratamento de Exceções na Interoperabilidade de Processos-de-Processos de Negócios

“…Em paralelo, cada organizac ¸ão de uma alianc ¸a contém seus próprios processos de negócio individuais e específicos, denominados processos constituintes. Quando esses processos são combinados para alcanc ¸ar os objetivos estratégicos das alianc ¸as, surgem processos de negócios complexos e dinâmicos, que são normalmente automatizados por SoS e são nomeados Processos-de-Processos de Negócio (PoP -Processes-of-Business Processes) [Cagnin and Nakagawa 2021].…”

Tratamento de Requisitos de Confiabilidade de Sistemas-de-Sistemas: Um Mapeamento Sistemático da Literatura

“…Os sistemas constituintes de um SoS podem pertencer a diferentes organizac ¸ões que têm seus processos de negócios específicos. Tais processos, quando reunidos para alcanc ¸ar objetivos estratégicos de alianc ¸as de organizac ¸ões (tais como parcerias, fusões ou aquisic ¸ões de empresas), fazem surgir processos de negócios grandes, complexos e dinâmicos que são automatizados por SoS e são denominados como Processos-de-Processos de Negócio (PoP -Processes-of-Business Processes) [Cagnin and Nakagawa 2021].…”