Requirements Modelling and Specification for Service Oriented Architecture

4.8. The Human Side of Business Process Management

Network business process models tend to emphasize the procedural side of processes, usually focusing on software applications, but in reality there is another side that they often obscure. This is great if you are concerned with enterprise integration or the reuse of the legacy. However, many crucial business processes are essentially based on human ingenuity. Consider such processes: product design, mergers and acquisitions, writing a novel, developing a marketing strategy, pacifying a dissatisfied customer or deciding what proportion of the national product should be allocated to the arts - and to which arts?

BPEL and its like were languages designed for programmers to help them build automated process engines and thus orchestrating (often existing) existing computing resources. Such languages were never intended to provide a tool for business analysts to develop high-level process models. Also, BPEL and all the network BPM techniques emphasize transactional activities; but many business processes are not transactional, rather they are what Harrison-Broninski (2005) calls collaborative. Consider the examples listed in the previous paragraph: all of them are totally collaborative - except maybe writing a novel, although getting it published is entirely another matter. Ould (2005) insists further that collaboration is at the heart of real-world processes and therefore 'must be at the heart of our process methods' as part of his ...