Integrating Processes, Cases, and Decisions for Knowledge-Intensive Process Modelling

Knowledge-intensive processes require flexibility and scalability in modelling, as well as profound integration of data and decisions into the process. Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a pertinent modelling method for processes. Until lately decisions were regularly modelled as a part of the process model in intertwined paths and gateways, negatively affecting the maintainability, comprehensibility and flexibility of processes as well as decisions. The recent introduction of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard provides an opportunity for shifting in favour of a Separation of Concerns between the decision and process model. Likewise, the Case Management Model and Notation (CMMN) standard provides a method for modelling loosely structured processes in the form of cases. These three Object Management Group (OMG) standards are developed to be mutually intelligible. Previous work discusses for which modelling endeavours the separate methods should be employed. However, a clear approach towards consistently integrating the process, case, and decision concerns has still not been proposed. In this paper, we shed a light on the importance of the separation of concerns and identify inconsistencies that might arise in terms of integrated process, case, and decision modelling. Additionally, we provide a first attempt at guidelines aiming to remedy potential incompatibilities and inconsistencies.

[1]  Jan Vanthienen,et al.  Compliant and Flexible Business Processes with Business Rules , 2006, BPMDS.

[2]  Knut Hinkelmann,et al.  Business Process Flexibility and Decision-Aware Modeling - The Knowledge Work Designer , 2016, Domain-Specific Conceptual Modeling.

[3]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst,et al.  DECLARE: Full Support for Loosely-Structured Processes , 2007, 11th IEEE International Enterprise Distributed Object Computing Conference (EDOC 2007).

[4]  Johannes De Smedt,et al.  Towards Assessing the Theoretical Complexity of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) , 2017, RADAR+EMISA@CAiSE.

[5]  Richard Hull,et al.  Data Centric BPM and the Emerging Case Management Standard: A Short Survey , 2012, Business Process Management Workshops.

[6]  Knut Hinkelmann,et al.  Combining Process Modelling and Case Modeling , 2014 .

[7]  Jan Vanthienen,et al.  Emerging standards in decision modeling , 2013 .

[8]  Hafedh Mili,et al.  Comparing ConDec to CMMN: Towards a common language for flexible processes , 2016, 2016 4th International Conference on Model-Driven Engineering and Software Development (MODELSWARD).

[9]  Andreas Meyer,et al.  Extracting Decision Logic from Process Models , 2015, CAiSE.

[10]  Jan Vanthienen,et al.  Declarative business process modelling: principles and modelling languages , 2015, Enterp. Inf. Syst..

[11]  Jing Hu,et al.  An Evaluation Framework for Design-Time Context-Adaptation of Process Modelling Languages , 2017, PoEM.

[12]  Lila Rao-Graham,et al.  Building ontology based knowledge maps to assist business process re-engineering , 2012, Decis. Support Syst..

[13]  John A. van der Poll,et al.  Measuring Method Complexity of the Case Management Modeling and Notation (CMMN) , 2014, SAICSIT '14.

[14]  Marco Montali,et al.  Discovering Data-Aware Declarative Process Models from Event Logs , 2013, BPM.

[15]  Jan Vanthienen,et al.  An Illustration of Five Principles for Integrated Process and Decision Modelling (5PDM) , 2017 .

[16]  Marta Indulska,et al.  Guidelines for Business Rule Modeling Decisions , 2018, J. Comput. Inf. Syst..

[17]  Paola Mello,et al.  Towards data-aware constraints in declare , 2013, SAC '13.

[18]  Monique Snoeck,et al.  Context-adaptive Petri nets: Supporting adaptation for the execution context , 2015, Expert Syst. Appl..

[19]  Johannes De Smedt,et al.  Challenges in Refactoring Processes to Include Decision Modelling , 2017, Business Process Management Workshops.

[20]  Geert Poels,et al.  Enhancing Declarative Process Models with DMN Decision Logic , 2015, BMMDS/EMMSAD.

[21]  Manfred Reichert,et al.  Refactoring large process model repositories , 2011, Comput. Ind..

[22]  Florian Matthes,et al.  Case Management: An Evaluation of Existing Approaches for Knowledge-Intensive Processes , 2015, Business Process Management Workshops.

[23]  Johannes De Smedt,et al.  Business rules, decisions and processes: five reflections upon living apart together , 2013 .

[24]  Johannes De Smedt,et al.  Towards a Holistic Discovery of Decisions in Process-Aware Information Systems , 2017, BPM.

[25]  Johannes De Smedt,et al.  A Service-Oriented Architecture Design of Decision-Aware Information Systems: Decision as a Service - (Short Paper) , 2017, OTM Conferences.