using cuta4bpm to support participative development ...

USING CUTA4BPM TO SUPPORT PARTICIPATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERT-DRIVEN PROCESSES Kathrin Kirchner1, Siniša Nešković² Department of Business Information Systems, School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Strasse 3, Jena, Germany ²Branislav Lazarević Laboratory of Information Systems Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Jove Ilića 154, Belgrade, Serbia

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Abstract – Current approaches for participative process design of expert-driven processes allow only eliciting an informal specification of such process. On the other hand, approaches based on formal process modeling are not appropriate for participative design. This paper provides an approach to enable a more precise specification and formal modeling of expertdriven processes in a participative way. It is based on CUTA4BPM language, an extension of CUTA participative card game, which is aimed to support high level process modeling of the business process management life cycle. To support detailed process design and automation, CUTA4BPM is transformed to BPMN using model driven engineering techniques. 1. INTRODUCTION In companies, knowledge about processes has strategic significance. This knowledge can be disseminated to employees enabling improvement of their working skills, can provide better standardization of business activities, can be used for processes automation, etc. In other words, this knowledge is crucial for improving the quality of products and services, i.e. to gain business efficiency and achieve better business results. Process experts gain knowledge while conducting their processes over time. Process knowledge can be explicit, which can directly be articulated in natural or formal language, written down and given to others. In contrast, tacit process knowledge is only in the heads of experts. This knowledge can be associated with skills or know-how that people develop over time through their own experience and often become routinized. However, such knowledge is hard to formalize. Hence, it is often difficult for people to explain their process step-by-step, to define the right sequence of activities and to remember all steps. While experts usually can only give an informal, vague description of processes, a precise formal specification is needed in order to automate the process.[20] In this paper, we introduce an approach to support the participative design of such expert-driven processes. Participative design builds on democratic participation of stakeholders in the software development process

[13] and mutual learning among software engineers, future end users and other stakeholders [1]. Therefore, we first analyze modeling approaches for their suitability to elicit and model expert-driven processes. We than provide a participative card game named CUTA4BPM, which is particularly suitable for knowledge elicitation of processes, i.e. high level analysis and modeling of processes based on participation of both process experts and analysts. This high-level analysis and modeling is part of a participative process lifecycle that will be introduced in this paper. The paper is structured as follows: First, we describe existing modeling approaches and discuss their suitability of eliciting and formalizing expert-driven processes. In section 3, we introduce the modeling notation CUTA4BPM card game. This card game is part of a participative model-driven lifecycle explained in section 4. Our approach is evaluated in section 5. Section 6 summarizes our findings. 2. MODELING APPROACHES Following our aim to elicit and model expert-driven processes together with process experts, we have to look at formal modeling languages as well as participative approaches. 2.1. FORMAL MODELING LANGUAGES A number of graphical modeling languages have been developed to support analysis and modeling of processes in companies, such as BPMN[15] and EPC[7]. Such process modeling notations cover a lot of aspects to model typical process situations. They are widely used in practice by process analysts and software developers, but are rather complex and usually difficult to understand by non-IT experts. As it is recognized in several papers, formal process languages tend to be over-engineered with limited understandability and without sufficient value for non-IT stakeholders.[17] For instance, regarding BPMN Recker [16] found that only a core set of symbols are regularly used for a high level model of the process that can be discussed with the process expert. Solving this problem, based on several studies,

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Fernandez et al. [5] propose SBPMN (Simple Business Process Modeling Notation) to enable business users to model their processes themselves using simplified elements without support from process analyst. In this way, SBPMN is not fully suitable for modeling of expert-driven processes, because it does not solve the problem to get a precise specification of a process that is in the head of experts. 2.2. PARTICIPATIVE CARD GAMES Other approaches for modeling processes understandable for non-IT experts come from Participative Design [19]. Especially participative card games (e.g. Collaborative Users’ Task Analysis, CUTA[11]) seem to be suitable for eliciting and modeling expert-driven processes. The approach based on participative card games uses physical (paper) playing cards, each of them represent a single type of activity (Fig.1). In a participative session, experts and analysts sit together and lay out, visualize and discuss a work flow using paper cards, each of them represent a single type of activity. The critical drawback of such approaches is a missing precise specification and the coupling with more formal models. Because CUTA contains only activity cards and no control flow elements, it is e.g. difficult to decide if two cards that are laid side by side mean parallel or alternative execution (Fig. 1). Therefore, CUTA is not suitable as a basis for further development and automation of processes.

The aim of our work is therefore to extend the participative card game CUTA so that:  a participative design is supported enabling elicitation of expert-driven processes, and  a more precise specification of expert-driven processes is possible that can be used for further development of processes. This extension is called CUTA4BPM and is briefly explained in the following section. More detailed description can be found in [4][3] for similar approaches called CUTA4UML covering process modeling for software development which is later transformed to UML Activity Diagrams and C4U which is the overall approach for both CUTA4UML and CUTA4BPM. 3. CUTA4BPM With this extended CUTA4BPM card game, the knowledge of the process expert as well as domainspecific terminology can be elicited and formalized in a participative way. For this extension, a thorough analysis was done. First, it was examined what is needed to describe a step in an expert-driven process. It has to be known e.g. who is carrying out which activity, where and when the activity takes places. This resulted in a new activity card (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. Activity card in CUTA4BPM The activity description is a complete sentence in natural language (subject – predicate - object) which provides the content related information for the corresponding activity in the business process. The subject is normally a concrete person. Additionally, the subject’s role describes whether this activity could be performed by a business unit or a group of people where the subject belongs to. Furthermore, additional elements to the original CUTA card such as extra text fields representing further descriptions of an activity were added. Now, it can be described which utilities are needed to conduct the activity, where it takes place (location) or whether there is any time limit. Figure 1. Original CUTA process model [11]

Second, it was analyzed, which typical situations can occur in a work flow with the help of workflow

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patterns [18]. Therefore, cards representing control flow elements like loop or case where added (Tab. 1).

is easier to define a valid workflow using them. Consequently, they provide better support for participative design.

Control Description flow cards Case Execute one out of many alternatives

Although BPMN and other graph oriented languages are perhaps better equipped for specification of all technical aspects of processes, especially for specification of process automation, this is not an issue in participative design and such detailed specifications are postponed for later phases of process development. In this way, separating high level process specification from its low level (technical) design, complexity of process development is better managed.

Loop

Repeat a sequence of activities

Parallel Multiple choice

Execute at least two activities in parallel One or more out of many activities are executed

Table 1. Control flow cards in CUTA4BPM Figure 3 gives an example how multiple choice can be modeled using CUTA4BPM.

Figure 3. Multiple Choice modeling Modeling of loops and cases is illustrated in Figure 4. An example of a complete process model in CUTA4BPM is given in Figure 5.

But especially for elicitation of complex processes a lot of space is needed while using paper CUTA4BPMN paper cards. Moreover, for further discussions the arranged card sequences have to be restored, which could be difficult. In this case a paperbased version seems to be a non-satisfying solution. It is worth to mention that there is already developed a prototype of an initial graphical editor for CUTA, which is based on the touch screen user interactive interface [14]. A video presentation of this editor can be found in [21]. Thus, using such interactive interface, card games which usually assume playing with physical cards are fully computer supported. Storing of process models developed during participative sessions and their later processing is enabled.

Figure 4. Loop and Case modeling Furthermore, CUTA4BPM is defined as a blockoriented language [10]. The main advantage of such languages, comparing to graph oriented ones such as BPMN, is that they require less number of symbols and, hence, fewer control flow cards. Additionally, it

Figure 5. Part of elicited process in university

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Figure 6. Participative model driven business process life cycle

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PARTICIPATIVE MODEL-DRIVEN LIFECYCLE

CUTA4BPM is aimed to support just a part of the business process management life cycle, covering the CIM level of analysis and conceptual processes modeling. It is not intended to support detailed design and, hence, is not suitable as a basis for automation of processes. That is why it needs to be translated to more formal oriented languages. In this work, CUTA4BPM is translated to BPMN using a model driven engineering (MDE) technique [12]. Thus, MDE development is fully supported with CUTA4BPM serving as a computer independent model (CIM), while BPMN and BPEL serve as a platform independent model (PIM) and a platform specific model (PSM) respectively. Figure 6 shows our participative model-driven lifecycle for business process management. In a forward engineering manner, BPM lifecycle starts with knowledge elicitation and process analysis resulting in a CUTA4BPM model. The cards are applied in interviews between process analyst and process expert. Each interview consists of two sessions which are conducted on two different days. The first session aims to obtain an overview of main characteristics of a business process. In the second session, the process analyst summarizes the results of the first session with the help of the cards. In a participative way, cards can be rearranged or added to result in a more precise high-level process model. This CUTA4BPM model is then transformed into a BPMN model, which is later used for detailed process specification and design. For this model

transformation, a meta model for CUTA4BPM is developed, that describes syntax and semantics of valid CUTA models. Based on the meta models of CUTA4BPM and BPMN, a model transformation using QVT (Query View Transformation) language is implemented. The resulting BPMN model can be extended to result in a more detailed model, enabling later transformation to BPEL used for process execution. Using a backward engineering approach, a formal model in BPMN can be partially transferred back into a high-level CUTA4BPM model that is the basis for reengineering discussions. To develop ideas for future changes, Jungk und Müllert [6] provide the idea of future workshops. Originally used for citizen groups to be included in decision processes like town planning or environmental protection, future workshop can also used in system development [8]. A future workshop consists of three phases. In the critique phase, participants can draw out issues about current work practice; the fantasy phase gives the freedom to imagine future visions, whereas in the implementation phase it will be discussed what realistic changes can be made based on future visions. Thus, process experts can discuss critical drawbacks of the current process using its visualization in CUTA4BPM. They can write down their comments on little cards that can be laid next to the process activity that is criticized. Optimization ideas can be collected. Each idea is noted on a paper without further discussion. At the end of this phase the participants select interesting

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ideas by giving points. The ideas that have the most points are selected for further consideration. In the realization phase of the workshop, the process can be optimized by adding, deleting or rearranging cards so that a to-be-process at a high level can be designed. Using previously described forward engineering manner, this high level to-be-process can be further developed and automated, making the full circle of the cooperative model driven life cycle. 4. EVALUATION The presented approach is verified through an evaluation, which was done in more than 15 interviews with process experts working in farming [9], pharmacy, university administration (Fig. 4) and production. [2] The interviewees were experts with long-time practical experience in their domain and for the first time included in the requirements elicitation process for software development. Each interview consisted of two sessions which were conducted on two different days. The first session was designed to obtain an overview of main characteristics of business processes. The cards only served as a memory aid. Only fragments of the workflow were documented by the card writer. In this first session, the stakeholder became familiar with the cards. In the second session the cards were used all along. In the beginning the interviewer summarized the results of the first session with the help of the cards. Depending on the customer’s feedback, card sequences were rearranged, single words or phrases on cards were corrected, or a card was entirely replaced. The discussion became more detailed and new cards were added. The evaluation of the conducted interviews has shown that the CUTA4BPM cards considerably helped to structure the expert’s thoughts and enabled better explanation of his process with the help of examples, but the cards also helped to generalize them. With CUTA4BPM approach the process expert becomes step by step an active part of the process modeling process. Thereby the process analyst got familiar with stakeholders’ domain problems. The stakeholder himself can follow the process with the cards and can correct the interviewer on an openminded and trustful way. Thereby, the communication between stakeholder and developer was simplified. Thus, intensive expert with process analyst cooperation was facilitated, misunderstandings were minimized and CUTA4BPM really worked as a bridge language between process expert and process analyst.

5. CONCLUSION In this paper, we developed an approach of a modeldriven participative business process lifecycle based on CUTA4BPM. Therefore, we introduced an extended version of the participative card game CUTA that includes an extended activity card as well as additional cards for control flows. These extended cards are used in the process development lifecycle to support the high-level analysis and modeling of expert-driven processes together with the experts. The obtained CUTA4BPM process model can be transformed into the more formal BPMN and BPEL models, which provides a basis for a more detailed technical modeling as well as for an implementation. Also, a back transformation from BPEL and BPMN models into CUTA4BPMN is possible. Thus, both forward and backward (re)engineering of a process is supported. As our evaluation with experts from various domains shows, our approach helps to model processes driven by expert knowledge and expertise together with the process expert. Structuring of thoughts is easier for experts, modeling by examples is supported, communication is improved and finally the risks of imprecise and incomplete process models are reduced. Regarding software support for this approach, a prototype of the CUTA4BPM graphical editor as well as a transformation into BPMN are already implemented. Next, we plan to support backward transformation from BPMN to CUTA4BPM. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Research presented in this paper was partially supported by the Government of Republic of Serbia, Project Grant III-44010, Title: Intelligent Systems for Software Product Development and Business Support based on Models REFERENCES [1] Bødker, S., Ehn, P., Sjögren, D., & Sundblad, Y. (2000). Co-operative Design — perspectives on 20 years with ‘the Scandinavian IT Design Model’. In Proceedings of the First Nordic Conference on Human Computer Interaction (Stockholm, Sweden). [2] Erfurth, I., Kirchner, K.: Requirements Elicitation with Adapted CUTA Cards: First Experiences with Business Process Analysis. Proceedings of 15th IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems, 2010, Pages:215-223.

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