Araujo, R. M. & Borges, M.R.S.: Awareness Extensions in Workflow Management Systems - Elements for Collaboration and Process Learning. 7th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design CSCWD´2002, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, September 2002, pp. 375-380.
Awareness Extensions in Workflow Management Systems – Elements for Collaboration and Process Learning Renata Mendes de Araujo DCC/IM – UFRJ
[email protected]
Marcos R. S. Borges DCC/IM & NCE - UFRJ
[email protected] more concise and direct view of the existing collaboration in each supported process. The aim of this paper is to discuss and suggest how workflow management systems could be extended with new awareness resources. The suggested awareness resources would help users to be aware of the collaboration in the processes they take part, and, consequently, understand, learn and improve their work. This paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we discuss how role of process and its related technological support in organizational learning. In Section 3, we outline the awareness resources usually provided by WFMSs and how they can help organizations find out how processes are carried out. In Section 4 we present our ideas about how WFMSs could be extended with awareness resources aiming at augmenting process learning and collaboration. In Section 5, we illustrate our ideas by presenting an implementation of a set of the suggested awareness mechanisms in a commercial WFMSs. Section 6 concludes the paper.
Abstract Workflow management systems offer an initial set of awareness information about processes definition and enactment that can help organizations to be aware of how they perform their work. The aim of this paper is to discuss and suggest how workflow systems could be extended with new awareness resources that would help users to be aware of the collaboration in the processes they take part, and, consequently, understand, learn and improve their work.
1. Introduction Organizations have been noticing that improving their working processes is essential to stay competitive. In spite of the variety of improvement approaches suggested in the market, what has been discovered is that, along with an improvement approach, each organization needs to find its best way for improving its work, based on its own characteristics, objectives and needs [1]. One requirement for continuous improving is the organization’s ability to learn, and, particularly, to learn about themselves. Currently, concepts like organizational learning [2][3] and knowledge management [4] have arisen, bringing some light into how organizations can be aware of their work and outcomes in order to make decisions, reengineer and improve their work. Having a clear notion about how they perform their tasks in order to attend to their business requirements, how these processes have evolved in time and what were the outcomes, gains and losses at each process change, are important elements for guiding organizations in continuously improve work quality and productivity. We are especially concerned about how an organization can learn about the collaboration that occurs within the execution of its processes. Collaboration is an intrinsic characteristic of nowadays business processes and, therefore, improving collaboration implies in improving the processes where they occur. WFMSs offer an initial set of awareness information about processes definition and enactment that can help organizations be aware of how they perform their work. However, WFMSs still lack resources for providing a
2. Processes and collaboration – paths to organizational learning The organizational learning literature states that learning is a continuous cycle of converting organizational knowledge between tacit and explicit states [3][7]. One of the steps to make an organization learn is to turn the tacit knowledge that exists in each department or employee’s mind to its explicit state, so that other sectors or employees can be aware and learn about it. Working processes can be considered as a kind of an organization’s tacit knowledge; something that is actually used and performed inside an organization, although participants may not have a clear notion about how it is accomplished. The first step to turn process knowledge into an explicit state is to codify it in a process definition or model. Process modeling can be used as an activity for generating knowledge and understanding about processes in an organization [8][9]. This knowledge comprises not only the process decomposition into activities and its execution flow, but also other organizational aspects involved in the process such as: individuals, groups, organizational entities, roles and responsibilities.
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The next step to turn process explicit in an organization is to make this definition available to the members of the organization. By providing resources for process modeling and enactment, process technology can be useful to show and explain how work is carried out or, in other words, to bring processes from its tacit to its explicit state [8]. Following this idea, many researchers have suggested process automation technology as a framework for turning explicit the knowledge about processes in an organization [10][11]. Workflow management systems have also been a target when discussing how these systems can be useful for managing knowledge in organizations [12][11][13]. Another kind of tacit knowledge dispersed in employees’ minds is the knowledge about collaboration. Although group work is central to nowadays’ organizations productivity, workers usually are not aware of how they contribute to each other, and, consequently, they loose an important aspect to be learned and improved. Unfortunately, most organizations don’t have “collaboration models” or “definitions” describing how collaboration occurs so that the organization staff can learn about it. For example, a study conducted by Cain and Coplien [14][15] proposes an approach for studying software processes based on the analysis of interaction patterns between process agents. Basically, their approach is to collect information about roles, responsibilities and interactions from organization employees. By gathering the collected information, a role-interaction graph can be built, representing the result of the assumptions about roles and interactions, which are in the participants’ minds. One interesting conclusion of their work was the effect this technique caused on employees, changing the way they saw their own working processes. Christie and Staley [16] discuss the importance of modeling interactions through what they called “social simulation”. They were particularly worried about how could they collect and model information such as: the influence that participants have on each other, each participant’s degree of receptivity of others’ ideas, and their understanding about the process.
2.1 Providing organizations
awareness
of
processes
interaction process [18]. Awareness resources are elements for making collaboration explicit. Consequently, can be used as elements for helping participants to learn about their work. We consider that the set of awareness resources already available in WFMSs are a first step for providing awareness of working processes. The approach behind WFMSs is to integrate users (process participants) to the process itself, and to distribute work responsibilities within the team according to the defined process. WFMSs helps participants to become aware of their responsibilities instead of strictly controlling their work. We argue that an extended notion and visualization of working processes through awareness resources can help workers to continuously learn about their own process, to feel committed in the improvement of their practices, and to be stimulated to work collaboratively.
3. Awareness systems
information
in
workflow
The existing WFMSs vary in offering different kinds of information for its users. However, there are some basic resources common to most WFMSs. We will highlight some of the most common awareness information provided by workflow systems in general and illustrate them using a particular commercial system called WebDeploy [19]. In WFMSs, workgroups have a common purpose: to accomplish a process. The common object being shared by this group is the defined process to be executed, composed by a set of activities, to which specific documents or products are associated with. This object – the process - is available to the group usually through a database (that becomes the groups shared work space) where process definitions are stored, as well as the events that occurred during the process enactment. A WFMS must be concerned of how to provide awareness information about the object being shared and about its execution (awareness of activities and awareness of the shared workspace). WFMSs usually provide a resource, called the “process map”, where users can have a graphical view of the defined process being performed, emphasizing its defined flow of activities. In a process map, users can distinguish different types of activities and connectors that control the flow of activities through iconic representations (Figure 1). The status of each activity can also be known through the process map by the use of colors to differentiate if an activity has already been done or if it is currently being performed. From the social awareness point of view, the accomplishment of an activity is dependent on the accomplishment of its previous activities as defined by the process map. Thus, a process actor may have a notion
to
Awareness is an important concept for collaborative support [17]. It comprises how a user of a collaborative tool can understand what happens during a collaborative interaction. Basically, these resources are interface mechanisms designed to present information that can be gathered from the interaction database, filtered and treated to inform users about some aspect of the
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of whom he depends on to perform his tasks. Though not intentional, this dependency information also provides users the awareness that he requires the collaboration of others to perform his task and that he also collaborate with those that perform subsequent tasks.
Products like FLOWer [21][22] offers resources from which process participants can be aware of the overall context that comprises the enactment of a process instance. In FLOWer, each process is considered as a case and not only as a sequence of activities to be routed. All information generated at each process step (or casehandling procedure) is available for any process participant during the enactment. Each participant, whatever is the step he is performing in a specific moment, can be aware of this process memory information as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 1. A process map in a WFMS The worklist is also an important awareness mechanism for WFMSs users. They present to each process participant the tasks that require his attention in a specific moment, along with other details about its accomplishment: status, estimated time, instructions for execution etc (Figure 2).
Figure 3. Screenshot of the case guide in FLOWer[21]
4. Extending workflow systems with new awareness information A workflow system provides the main resources for viewing process from the perspective of its activities composition. However, WFMSs usually offer an individualized view of the process. Specially in WFMSs supporting administrative or production processes, the available awareness resources provide each performer with an individual view of the process to be performed and what are his responsibilities on its accomplishment. The existing collaboration within a process is still difficult to recognize. For instance, when a group is assigned to perform an activity, each member will only be aware of the necessary interaction with other group members when he actually performs the activity. WFMSs almost “isolate” users in their individual work context. A user can be aware of where the process flows form and to in respect to his individual activity. However, it is hard for a user to be aware of what happens outside
Figure 2. Individual worklist Other information regarding: what are the active, terminated or suspended instances of each process definition; details of each activity execution – time, deadline, percentage finished etc can also be encountered by navigating through the WFMSs database. WFMSs also allow participants to share documents along process enactment. In this respect, users can be aware of the documents that are used in the process and related information about its status and access control. WFMSs also worry about providing information related to the process performers and who is responsible for the accomplishment of each activity. These systems also provide information about groups and the assignment of each user to specific roles in a group.
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their specific activities and how other participants perform their own activities. This information is usually dispersed through the process definition and enactment information stored in the workflow database, requiring a considerable amount of navigation or query effort to be retrieved. As a consequence, participants loose the opportunity to be aware of the collaboration that exists among them. The availability of awareness resources that make this information explicit should be useful to help WFMSs users understand the social interaction that exists in the process they execute. In our research we started to discuss new awareness information for WFMSs, which augment the participants’ understanding of the collaboration they take part. Next, we describe some of our proposals: Groups, roles and responsibilities. It would be useful to provide an infrastructure where process performers can understand how they interact with each other in order to solve the problems during process enactment. One step towards this infrastructure is to provide mechanisms that help participants build a notion about how his team is composed and, consequently, be aware of the communication possibilities among them. From the information stored in the WFMSs database, we can provide participants information that identifies the groups assigned to contribute to a process, the roles defined for each group and the activities that are performed by each individual, role or group. Thus, process participants should be able to understand how the team is composed and to be aware of his work partners. Interactions. To emphasize collaboration and to allow future improvements in group interaction, participants should understand how these interactions occur within the group, i.e., to recognize relationships among their roles and responsibilities. The awareness mechanisms should be able to answer which are the process partners that are “nearer” to his activities, which participants are distant from his work and with whom they closely collaborate. Level of participation. The WFMSs main objective is to assign work to people. We can consider that contribution to the process is compulsory. Each member contribution along a process enactment may be measured and visualized in a workflow system by the number of tasks he performs. Users and process managers can be aware of this information since WFMSs usually provide mechanisms concerning statistics of process and participants performance. However, as discussed by Borges and Pino [5], to measure the degree of participation in a collaborative work is more complex and subtler than just measuring the number of contributions generated by a member. Participation seems to be more voluntary than contribution and has a narrow relationship with the level of a participant’s commitment to the process execution.
Let’s imagine the situation where two or more participants were assigned to accomplish some tasks in the process and that the completion criteria of each task define that anyone of them needs to complete it. If one of them usually is the participant who assigns himself the tasks to be done and actually perform it, then it seems that he is more participative than the others. It is needles to say that commitment is contagious and that its absence too. Therefore, we believe that, being aware of the other partners’ level of participation or commitment to the process may influence the commitment and participation of other process performer. Impact of tasks. Among the activities performed in a process, some of them can be considered more critical than others. In a process map, activities are depicted as if they had the same level of importance to the process. Analogous to what has been suggested in [5], the awareness of the impact of a task may influence process actors’ level of contribution and participation. For instance, knowing that he takes part in a critical task will probably turn a member more committed to its accomplishment. Knowing that his task is an input for or output of a high critical task may have the same effect. Focus and convergence. Many instances of the same process definition may be executed and different people may be assigned to perform the same task in different processes. To know who performs the same task in other process instances and how the work is performed can be useful information to guide a process participant in accomplishing his tasks, to compare his work with others or even to solve any doubts in respect to his task. Conflict/divergence. We could also imagine the possibility of providing information about the level of conflict or divergence between participants performing the same task. Let’s imagine the case where performers of the same task usually accomplish it with completely different outcomes but under the same conditions. Imagine that in a credit approval process, one credit analyst usually accepts the credit claim that satisfies certain conditions. Another analyst, in analogous situations, usually rejects it. If they could be aware that they diverge in the same situation, perhaps they could discuss why they work differently and learn from each other. This idea has similarities with the notion that a conflict in a collaborative session can be seen as an opportunity for collaboration [5][6].
5. Implementations Our next step was to start to build some of the awareness mechanisms mentioned above on the top of a workflow system. The development of these mechanisms was inserted in the context of the definition of an environment originally conceived to support software development processes.
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A commercial workflow system [19] was extended with the development of additional awareness resources. This extension – named PIEnvironmentΨ - provides the two first awareness information outlined in the previous section: group composition and existent interactions in the process. Groups, roles and responsibilities. For each defined process, the PIEnvironment displays information about process participants and a list containing all process activities. The PIEnvironment allows the visualization of the composition of each group. This composition is presented as a tree where one can see the defined roles within the group and the individuals assigned to each role (Figure 4-1). The nodes highlighted in the tree show the participation of the current user in each group (Figure 42). Also, one can view the activities in the process that are under the responsibility of each tree node (groups, roles or individuals). When a tree node is selected, the activities executed by the performer represented by the node are highlighted (Figure 4-2). Interactions. To provide participants with perception about team collaboration, PIEnvironment adopted a solution based on Cain and Coplien’s approach for process modeling, mentioned previously in this paper [14][15]. The mechanism extracts information about performers’ implicit interaction from process definitions and presents them as an interaction graph. Each node on the graph represents a performer (a group, a group role or an individual). The distinction between each kind of performer (group, role or individual) is obtained by using different colors (green, yellow and red, respectively) (Figure 5). The roles and groups where the user takes part are highlighted in the graph, as well as the nodes where he appears as an individual. The arcs on the graph represent the interactions and/or collaboration that may exist among process participants. One criterion used to build the graph is related to the definition of the performer of each activity. If an activity was assigned to be executed by a group, the graph displays the possibility of a potential collaboration among the roles that compose this group. The PIEnvironment also considers that performers of subsequent activities in the process flow of execution have some degree of collaboration. We assume that if one performer has to wait the execution of a precedent activity in order to execute his own activity, which may be an indicator that the results/products of the preceding performer are needed for his work. In other words, performers of contiguous activities “interact” through the results/products of his activities and this interaction may be represented in the graph. Ψ
(1)
(2)
Figure 4 - Group composition and responsibilities
Figure 5- Example of an interaction graph
6. Conclusion This paper focuses on how to provide work teams with resources for being aware of the process they execute in order to understand, learn and improve their work. We are especially concerned about how can an organization ca learn about the collaboration that occurs within their working processes. WFMs offer an initial set of awareness information about processes definition and enactment that can help organizations be aware of how they perform their work. Our aim in this paper was to discuss and suggest some awareness information that could be incorporated in WFMs to help users to be aware of the collaboration in the processes they participate. We described an example
PIEnvironment stands for Process Improvement Environment
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of an environment that implements awareness mechanisms for some of the proposed information. The PIEnvironment has been under evaluation through case studies. Among the issues addressed in the case studies design, we want to observe how the workflow system awareness mechanisms and the proposed awareness extensions provided developers with knowledge and consciousness about their work. The main results of these evaluations can be found in [20]. In the future, we intend to study the design of mechanisms for providing the other awareness information mentioned in this paper.
[10] P. Dourish, R. Bentley, R. Jones and A. MacLean (1999). “Getting Some Perspective: Using Process Descriptions to Index Document History”. In: Proceedings of GROUP´99, Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Nov., pp. 375-384.
7. Acknowledgements
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The authors would like to thank FAPERJ (#E26/152.176/2000) and CNPq for financial support, CA and TDI-USA for Jasmine and WebDeploy; and Renato Fiche, Mauro Medeiros and Paulo Leite, who worked on the PIEnvironment implementation.
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8. References
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