Controlled automated discovery of collections of business process models

Automated process discovery techniques aim at extracting process models from information system logs. Existing techniques in this space are effective when applied to relatively small or regular logs, but generate spaghetti-like and sometimes inaccurate models when confronted to logs with high variability. In previous work, trace clustering has been applied in an attempt to reduce the size and complexity of automatically discovered process models. The idea is to split the log into clusters and to discover one model per cluster. This leads to a collection of process models – each one representing a variant of the business process – as opposed to an all-encompassing model. Still, models produced in this way may exhibit unacceptably high complexity and low fitness. In this setting, this paper presents a two-way divide-and-conquer process discovery technique, wherein the discovered process models are split on the one hand by variants and on the other hand hierarchically using subprocess extraction. Splitting is performed in a controlled manner in order to achieve user-defined complexity or fitness thresholds. Experiments on real-life logs show that the technique produces collections of models substantially smaller than those extracted by applying existing trace clustering techniques, while allowing the user to control the fitness of the resulting models.

Applying threshold learning theory to teach sustainable business practice in post-graduate engineering education

This paper presents the results of a qualitative action-research inquiry into how a highly diverse cohort of post-graduate students could develop significant capacity in sustainable development within a single unit (course), in this case a compulsory component of four built environment masters programs. The method comprised applying threshold learning theory within the technical discipline of sustainable development, to transform student understanding of sustainable business practice in the built environment. This involved identifying a number of key threshold concepts, which once learned would provide a pathway to having a transformational learning experience. Curriculum was then revised, to focus on stepping through these targeted concepts using a scaffolded, problem-based-learning approach. Challenges included a large class size of 120 students, a majority of international students, and a wide span of disciplinary backgrounds across the spectrum of built environment professionals. Five ‘key’ threshold learning concepts were identified and the renewed curriculum was piloted in Semester 2 of 2011. The paper presents details of the study and findings from a mixed-method evaluation approach through the semester. The outcomes of this study will be used to inform further review of the course in 2012, including further consideration of the threshold concepts. In future, it is anticipated that this case study will inform a framework for rapidly embedding sustainability within curriculum.

Generating natural language texts from business process models

Process Modeling is a widely used concept for understanding, documenting and also redesigning the operations of organizations. The validation and usage of process models is however affected by the fact that only business analysts fully understand them in detail. This is in particular a problem because they are typically not domain experts. In this paper, we investigate in how far the concept of verbalization can be adapted from object-role modeling to process models. To this end, we define an approach which automatically transforms BPMN process models into natural language texts and combines different techniques from linguistics and graph decomposition in a flexible and accurate manner. The evaluation of the technique is based on a prototypical implementation and involves a test set of 53 BPMN process models showing that natural language texts can be generated in a reliable fashion.

Global business today, 3rd Asia Pacific Edition

The third edition of Global Business Today continues to effectively combine a world-wide orientation with an emphasis on the strategic issues that impact global business in our region. The authors provide background on the political, economic, social or cultural aspects of countries grappling with an international business issue, raising students' awareness of how national and geographic differences affect the conduct of international business. Chapter 7, for example, contains a new Country Focus box titled, "India's stuttering economic transformation". Developing economies are covered in the new Emerging Markets feature emphasizing the global coverage of the text and the increasing complexities and opportunities in international business. Chapter 13 contains Another Perspective box titled, "The China-plus-one Strategy."

Semantic querying of business process models

Determining similarity between business process models has recently gained interest in the business process management community. So far similarity was addressed separately either at semantic or structural aspect of process models. Also, most of the contributions that measure similarity of process models assume an ideal case when process models are enriched with semantics - a description of meaning of process model elements. However, in real life this results in a heavy human effort consuming pre-processing phase which is often not feasible. In this paper we propose an automated approach for querying a business process model repository for structurally and semantically relevant models. Similar to the search on the Internet, a user formulates a BPMN-Q query and as a result receives a list of process models ordered by relevance to the query. We provide a business process model search engine implementation for evaluation of the proposed approach.

Business process model abstraction

In order to execute, study, or improve operating procedures, companies document them as business process models. Often, business process analysts capture every single exception handling or alternative task handling scenario within a model. Such a tendency results in large process specifications. The core process logic becomes hidden in numerous modeling constructs. To fulfill different tasks, companies develop several model variants of the same business process at different abstraction levels. Afterwards, maintenance of such model groups involves a lot of synchronization effort and is erroneous. We propose an abstraction technique that allows generalization of process models. Business process model abstraction assumes a detailed model of a process to be available and derives coarse-grained models from it. The task of abstraction is to tell significant model elements from insignificant ones and to reduce the latter. We propose to learn insignificant process elements from supplementary model information, e.g., task execution time or frequency of task occurrence. Finally, we discuss a mechanism for user control of the model abstraction level – an abstraction slider.

Hypergraph-based modeling of ad-hoc business processes

Process models are usually depicted as directed graphs, with nodes representing activities and directed edges control flow. While structured processes with pre-defined control flow have been studied in detail, flexible processes including ad-hoc activities need further investigation. This paper presents flexible process graph, a novel approach to model processes in the context of dynamic environment and adaptive process participants’ behavior. The approach allows defining execution constraints, which are more restrictive than traditional ad-hoc processes and less restrictive than traditional control flow, thereby balancing structured control flow with unstructured ad-hoc activities. Flexible process graph focuses on what can be done to perform a process. Process participants’ routing decisions are based on the current process state. As a formal grounding, the approach uses hypergraphs, where each edge can associate any number of nodes. Hypergraphs are used to define execution semantics of processes formally. We provide a process scenario to motivate and illustrate the approach.

For the Win : How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business

Millions flock to their computers, consoles, mobile phones, tablets, and social networks each day to play World of Warcraft, Farmville, Scrabble, and countless other games, generating billions in sales each year. The careful and skillful construction of these games is built on decades of research into human motivation and psychology: A well-designed game goes right to the motivational heart of the human psyche. In For the Win, authors Kevin Werbach and Dan Hunter argue persuasively that gamemakers need not be the only ones benefiting from game design. Werbach and Hunter are lawyers and World of Warcraft players who created the world’s first course on gamification at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In their book, they reveal how game thinking—addressing problems like a game designer—can motivate employees and customers and create engaging experiences that can transform your business. For the Win reveals how a wide range of companies are successfully using game thinking. It also offers an explanation of when gamifying makes the most sense and a 6-step framework for using games for marketing, productivity enhancement, innovation, employee motivation, customer engagement, and more. In this informative guide, Werbach and Hunter reveal how game thinking can yield winning solutions to real-world business problems. Let the games begin!

Asia Pacific Business Process Management

First Asia Pacific Conference, AP-BPM 2013, Beijing, China, August 29-30, 2013. Selected Papers

Improving business through people and process

Recent information systems development using agile project management has yielded a 50% reduction in effort, together with significant improvements in organisational skills, productivity, quality and business satisfaction.

Entrepreneurial network development as a sign of business emergence

This study aims to explain the entrepreneurial processes as developments of entrepreneurial networks. As a theoretical framework, this study adopts the theory of experimentally organized economy and competence blocs. As suggested by this theory, entrepreneurs select profitable innovations and commercialise them. Through logistic regressions on the subjective and objective dependent variables, we find that nascent firms’ various activities to network customers, innovators, investors, and employees are positively associated with the business emergence. This study identifies the roles of entrepreneurs and the other actors in the entrepreneurial processes.

The role of the ethnic enclave in facilitating immigrant business performance and social integration

Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs, known the world over for their successful business practices (Kee, 1994), tend to start businesses within their ethnic enclave. But in a move away from multiculturalism, host countries increasingly fear that immigration and asylum pose a threat to social integration resulting in a lack of social cohesion and a plethora of government programs (Cheong, Edwards, Goulbourne & Solomos, 2007). For many immigrant entrepreneurs, the EE is an integral part of their social and cultural context and the location where ethnic resources reside (Logan, Alba & Stults, 2003). Immigrant entrepreneurs can harness the networks for labor and customers through various ties in their EE (Portes and Zhou, 1996). Yang, Ho and Chang (2010) illustrate in their paper that the Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs (IE) were able to utilize ethnic network resources as their social capital in order to reduce transaction costs and thus enhance business performance. Tilly (1990) explains that immigrants’ reliance on such networks for business or other information minimizes the socioeconomic hardships they would experience in host countries (Raijman & Tienda, 2000). Acquiring jobs in ethnic businesses and establishing businesses within an EE may facilitate migrants’ social integration into the host country (Tian & Shan, 1999). Although an EE has distinct economic advantages for immigrant entrepreneurs, Sequeira and Rasheed (2006: 367) argue that ‘Exclusive reliance on strong ties within the immigrant enclave has a negative effect on growth outside the enclave community.’ Similarly, Drori, Honig and Ginsberg (2010: 20) also propose that ‘The greater the reliance of transnational entrepreneurs on ethnic (versus societal) embedded resources and network structure, the narrower their possibilities of expanding the scope of their business.’ This research asks, ‘What is the role of the ethnic enclave in facilitating immigrant business growth and social integration? This project has the following important aims: A1 To better understand the role of IE, in particular Chinese IE in the Australian economy A2 To investigate the role of the EE in facilitating or inhibiting immigrant business performance A3 To understand how locating their firm inside or outside of the EE will affect the IE’s embeddedness in co-ethnic and nonco-ethnic networks and social integration A4 To understand how an IE’s social network affects business performance and social integration

Dimensions of business processes quality (QoBP)

Conceptual modeling is an important tool for understanding and revealing weaknesses of business processes. Yet, the current practice in reengineering projects often considers simply the as-is process model as a brain-storming tool. This approach heavily relies on the intuition of the participants and misses a clear description of the quality requirements. Against this background, we identify four generic quality categories of business process quality, and populate them with quality requirements from related research. We refer to the resulting framework as the Quality of Business Process (QoBP) framework. Furthermore, we present the findings from applying the QoBP framework in a case study with a major Australian bank, showing that it helps to systematically fill the white space between as-is and to-be process modeling.

Understanding and impacting the practice of business process management

This presentation will explore how BPM research can seamlessly combine the academic requirement of rigor with the aim to impact the practice of Business Process Management. After a brief introduction into the research agendas as they are perceived by different BPM communities, two research projects will be discussed that illustrate how empirically-informed quantitative and qualitative research, combined with design science, can lead to outcomes that BPM practitioners are willing to adopt. The first project studies the practice of process modeling using Information Systems theory, and demonstrates how a better understanding of this practice can inform the design of modeling notations and methods. The second project studies the adoption of process management within organizations, and leads to models of how organizations can incrementally transition to greater levels of BPM maturity. The presentation will conclude with recommendations for how the BPM research and practitioner communities can increasingly benefit from each other.

From the editors : introduction and a compass for business process design

In this editorial letter, we provide the readers of Information Systems Management with a background on process design before we discuss the content of the special issue proper. By introducing and describing a so-called process design compass we aim to clarify what developments in the field are taking place and how the papers in this special issue expand on our current knowledge in this domain.