Active process reuse model for collaboration

We discuss the reuse of process knowledge through conceptualized workflow patterns. Whilst knowledge reuse in the lifecycle of projects has been widely studied, most of the known solutions have been focusing on the reuse of communicated information – the process results – isolated from the processes themselves. Consequently, the focus on the immediate reuse of communicated project information (i.e. architectural and structural solutions, drawings, technical specifications and so on) intensified the research in the field of information retrieval and contextualization of the retrieved information. Actual processes, actors and tools that have led to the results of the work usually remain unrecorded, the latter was considered technically almost impossible. In contrast to the intuitive ad-hoc reuse of parts of existing results in a given context, ad-hoc reuse of parts of previously executed processes – together with processes’ meta-descriptors – is not so straightforward. In this paper we identify the methods and media in which processes are modelled and executed as a major barrier for process reuse. Based on the analysis of process modelling techniques we suggest a novel methodological approach and a conceptual solution for a collaboration system supported by active process models – utilizing the idea of conceptualized reusable workflow patterns. We present an architecture supporting process reuse, and two early prototypes. At the end, we also outline issues for further research.