Putting Workflow and BPM standards into context

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• Putting Workflow and BPM standards into context

Sharon Boyes-Schiller UK Country Chair Workflow
Management Coalition e-Science Workflow
Services, Edinburgh 3 December 2003
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Standards and Understanding

• Very little work has been done in order to
  define a precise semantic for inter-organizationa
  l business modeling.
• Dussart, Aubert, Patry (2002)

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• I need you to listen
• Deliberately controversial
• I need you to think
• What will be the impact of this on you?
• My assumptions may not be true ?
• If not why?
• Big money on being spent on this area of
  technology
• Big egos, Big IQs, Big jobs

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Putting it all in context

• Standards Adoption
• How many standards do you need?
• The problem the user faces
• The technologies involved
• What you don't need
• What you should do

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Standards Adoption

• How many universal standards are fully adopted?
• Think about their implementation
• What they do
• Infrastructure-based or application
• What do those that are adopted provide?

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The Problem

• 1995
• One standards group for process technology
  (workflow)
• Reference model 5 interface standards
• Size of the average specification 40 pages

? Wasnt XML supposed to make our life easier?

• 2003
• 10 standardization groups with interest in
  workflow
• 7 standards for process models alone
• Size of the average specification 100 pages

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The problem with standards?

• There are so many to choose from ?

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Established Standardization Players

• Workflow Management Coalition
• Workflow Process Definition Language (WPDL/XPDL)
• Workflow Process Interchange (IF 4/Wf-XML)
• Object Management Group
• OMG Workflow Facility
• Process Definition RFP (bom/99-10-03)
• Extension of UML for Workflow Modeling
• National Institute for Standards and
  Technologies/MIT
• Process Specification Language (PSL)
• Process Interchange Format (PIF)

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Recent Standardization Players

• Business Process Management Initiative
• Business Process Modeling Language (BPML)
• Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN)
• Business Process Query Language (BPQL)
• Electronic Business XML (ebXML)
• Business Process Schedule Specification (BPSS)
• OASIS
• Business Transaction Protocol (BTP)
• HP Labs / W3C
• Web Services Conversation Language (WSCL)
• SUN/BEA / W3C
• Web Services Choreography Interface (WSCI)
• IBM
• Web Services Flow Language (WSFL)
• Microsoft
• XLANG
• DARPA
• DARPA Agent Markup Language Services (DAML-S)

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Standards options

• Minimum Approach
• Design a set of complementary standards
• Example IBM/Microsoft
• BPEL4WS
• WS-Coordination
• WS-Transaction
• WS-Security
• Maximum Approach one size fits all
• Design one all-encompassing standard
• Example BPMI

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Distributed Process Model
Business Process Analysis,
Process View E2E
Modelling Definition Tools
Build Time
Run Time
Process Execution Environments
Process Control Interactions Message / Data
Interactions
Process Fragment - black box with internal
behaviour typically invisible boundary behavior
defined in terms of interactions with other
processes Process Fragments - typically enacted
in separate organization domains using
heterogeneous product / technology
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Scope of existing standards
Process Notation Standards
Process View E2E
BPMN
Process Definition Standards
XPDL BPML BPEL4WS
Process Interaction Standards
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Scope of Choreography
Choreography - The specification of the ordering
of potential interactions between BPM systems
Process View E2E
Emerging Standards
WSCI (BPEL4WS)
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4
XPDL proposed extensions?
2 3
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BPEL4WS Interaction mapping to Wf-XML
Request-reply functionality
Specification
Runtime Interaction
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WSCI Elements
Wf-XML
WSCI
Interface Selector Correlation Correlation
properties Model Actions
Process Instance Id (Key) State, context
result data Operations e.g. Start process
instance
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Wf-XML Runtime Operations
XML Data Elements
Provider
Requester / Observer
Optional
Change Process Instance State
To State context data
State entered
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What standards are relevant?

• Process definition
• XPDL
• BPML
• BPEL4WS
• Process Choreography
• WSCI
• (BPEL4WS)
• Process execution support
• Wf-XML
• Supporting areas
• SOAP
• WSDL
• UDDI

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The Reference Model
Process Definition Modelling Tools
Do you need more than Interoperability and Audit?
Specification 4
Other Process Management Systems
Application Interface
Performer Interface
Specification 2
Specification 3
Invoked Applications
Clients
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Standards are a good thing!?

• Need to ensure a real business benefit

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Business Owner Benefits

• Reduced risk investment protection
• Long term integration
• Better partner relationships
• Extend the reach of the business

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User responsibility
We get the standards we deserve Lack of input
from Business Users means that there is the
potential for technologists to misunderstand the
business requirements.
BUSINESS USERS NEED TO BE INVOLVED IN STANDARDS
DEVELOPMENT !!
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The problem were trying to solve!
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Look again at this
Vendor assumptions been made
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Vendor assumptions

• We will need a common platform
• We will share processes and IP
• We will run processes outside of our organization
• We will restrict our needs to fit standards
• The business users will pay for these standards

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Converse assumptions

• Lets assume that
• We wont need a standard platform
• We wont use standard procedures
• We wont use Web Services outside the firewall
• Unless it is process driven
• We wont share our intellectual property
• We want widest exposure
• We want investment protection with max agility
• We want total control
• Processes change depending on usage

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What do you need?

• If our assumptions are correct(based on Jon
  Pykes 15 years experience at Staffware and
  WfMCs 10 years as the standards leader)
• What do business users need?
• Standard notation say BPMN
• Interoperability I/F 4 from WfMC (Wf-XML)
• Audit capability I/F 5 from WfMC
• Process query (possibly) BPQL
• Business to Business Interaction BPEL
• To run a procedure for someone else

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What you dont need

• We dont need
• Complex standards that dont deliver
• Dominant vendors dictating technology direction
• Standards based on theory
• Of how business works
• Of how procedures work

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The cost
But who is going to pay ?

• Are the standards free and unfettered?
• Do business users pay a royalty?
• Are business users prepared to pay for something
  that
• They may not need
• Free alternatives available
• No business value

What do you think?
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What do you do?

• Get involved in the Standards debate
• Or else we will not develop whats needed
• Dont delay in moving forward
• Retrofit standards later if you need them
• Waiting is going to cost you
• Good standards will always give you
  interoperability.
• Demand, demand, demand

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And remember
Standards only have value if

• They are useful
• They deliver business benefit
• They are simple to use
• They are adopted

and that depends on you, the user and the vendor
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Thank you
WfMC Material provided by Layna Fischer, General
Manager Jon Pyke, Chair Thanks also to zur
Muehlen, Michael Workflow Modeling Languages for
B2B Processes. SAP Innovation Congress 2003,
Miami, FL, February 15-27, 2003. Slides 3, 5, 6,
and 7