OMG BPM/SOA Community of Practice sub-group meeting (2010-04-21) review

This post is some elaboration of topics discussed at the first meeting of the sub-group (Design Patterns / Integration Scenarios and Methodologies & Approaches) on 2010-04-21. In some cases, my comments are just to understand better the topics. Next meeting is planned for 2010-05-05.

Topic “Connecting business architecture to BPM/SOA/EA"

Within business architecture, there are patterns/templates which can be used to drive BPM/SOA

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One of the patterns can be the following: the whole enterprise is usually presented by different levels of abstractions and for each level we have to be clear with the triple.

1. WHY – A reason, an end goal or something you want to ultimately achieve (in functional and non-functional characteristics, i.e. including performance
2. HOW – Activities (verbs) that help to achieve the WHY
3. WHAT – Things (nouns) physical or non physical you use when performing the HOW

At the top level, we mainly deal with organisational artefacts: vision, plans, business models, etc. In deeper levels, WHY is a set of KPIs, HOW is a process and WHAT are different resources and assets. Here we deal with BPM artefacts: events, processes, activities, rules, roles, data structures, documents, audit trails and KPIs. Majority of these artefacts are implemented as services. At bottom levels, we deal with technical and physical artefacts.

HOW+WHAT of a particular level define WHY for next deeper level.

This structure and number of levels are unique for each enterprise.
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Topic “BPM/SOA methodology and approach”

Should it be centralized to be successful? Design / Technical authority should be centralized and limited

Does the methodology differ based on the technology you have selected? You’d like to think so, but in reality it’s not.

Longer term objectives often exist in BPM/SOA projects which have to be considered in the kickoff of the project. Or – are we seeing a trend to departmentalized implementations.

Funding drives the level of departmental vs enterprise level approaches.

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One of the main advantages of BPM is that it can be implemented step-by-step – different departments may start BPM at different time and advance with their pace. This advantage should be supported by a set of commonly-agreed guidelines which should help different people (in their creative work) find similar solutions for same problems and take similar decisions in same situations. This usually implies

1. Common architectural framework (principles, agreements, know-how and models)
2. Common business process modelling procedure
3. Naming conventions for artefacts
4. Catalog of available components
5. Technology recommendations (just desired functionality, no tools)
6. Open flow of knowledge and experience between central and departmental BPM projects

For items 1-3 find something existing and adapt for your needs. The central project should help a departmental BPM project be the best by learning from the rest.

As you can see, the central project proposes a set of technology-independent guidelines which streamlines the use of technology and tools. This approach allows even to start with a simple BPM tool to better understand needs, build internal competence, etc. and later to switch to a more powerful BPM tool.
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Topic "All together"

How do we go from design to implementing into production (including maintenance and support).

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I use a business process modelling procedure which delivers an executable process implementation that is simple (i.e. it is comprehensible by all stakeholders involved) and complete (i.e. it does something very similar to the final result).

The purpose of the modelling procedure is to analyse a building block (what is it supposed to do and should it be considered as a whole?) and to synthesize its implementation (how does it carry out its function and should it be considered as a composite?) as the explicit coordination of other building blocks (processes or activities). It is an iterative procedure – we can apply it until we only have left indivisible building blocks (i.e. activities).

See slides 36-46 from http://www.slideshare.net/samarin/how-to-use-bpmn-for-modelling-business-processes which describe this modelling procedure.

This is a process-centric view; another useful view is a system-centric one – see http://www.slideshare.net/samarin/architecting-enterprise-bpm-systems-for-optimal-agility-presentation
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Topic “Modeling for execution vs static documentation”

How do we define static documentation?
Now we are able to model strategy and execution – the gray line is leaning toward modeling more within the BPMS because it is “living documentation”.
Use living documentation as an example.

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Not sure that that I understood the question. Below I provide a few examples of “unusual” use of BPMN diagrams.

1. Top manager’s view of an end-to-end process

2. Presentation of a manual process to find out potential improvements

3. Description of several inter-communicating automatic processes as documentation for an IT architect

4. Illustration of the coordination within a small servicing department.

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Topic "Standards and Compliance"

Nothing yet.

Thanks,
AS