From Method Fragments to Method Services

In Method Engineering (ME) science, the key issue is the consideration of information system development methods as fragments. Numerous ME approaches have produced several definitions of method parts. Different in nature, these fragments have nevertheless some common disadvantages: lack of implementation tools, insufficient standardization effort, and so on. On the whole, the observed drawbacks are related to the shortage of usage orientation. We have proceeded to an in-depth analysis of existing method fragments within a comparison framework in order to identify their drawbacks. We suggest overcoming them by an improvement of the ?method service? concept. In this paper, the method service is defined through the service paradigm applied to a specific method fragment ? chunk. A discussion on the possibility to develop a unique representation of method fragment completes our contribution

Applying Activity Patterns for Developing an Intelligent Process Modeling Tool

Due to their high level of abstraction and their reusability, workflow patterns are increasingly attracting the interest of both BPM researchers and BPM tool vendors. Frequently, process models can be assembled out of a set of recurrent business functions (e.g., task execution request, approval, notification), each of them having generic semantics that can be described as activity pattern. To our best knowledge, so far, there has been no extensive work implementing such activity patterns in a process modeling tool. In this paper we present an approach for modeling business processes and workflows. It is based on a suite which, when being implemented in a process modeling tool, allows to design business processes based on well-defined (process) activity patterns. Our suite further provides support for analysing and verifying certain properties of the composed process models (e.g., absence of deadlocks and livelocks). Finally, our approach considers both business processes designed from scratch and processes extracted from legacy systems

Activity Patterns in Process-aware Information Systems: Basic Concepts and Empirical Evidence

Recently, a variety of workflow patterns was suggested for capturing different aspects in process-aware information systems (PAISs) including control and data flow, resources, process change, and exception handling. All these patterns are highly relevant for implementing PAISs and for designing process modeling languages. However, current patterns provide only a partial answer to the question which business functions a designer might want to reuse when modeling processes. This paper presents a revised version of a collection of activity patterns to deal with this challenge. Each of them is related to a recurrent business function as it can be frequently found in process models (e.g., task execution request, notification, approval). We describe the identified activity patterns and their variants in detail. The main purpose of our paper is to discuss results from empirical studies, in which we analyzed more than 200 process models in order to evidence the practical relevance of the patterns. This includes a detailed analysis of the context in which activity patterns occur as well the frequency of this occurrence. These empirical findings can be used for the design of more intelligent, pattern-based process modeling tools

Detecting and Explaining Conflicts in Attributed Feature Models

Product configuration systems are often based on a variability model. The development of a variability model is a time consuming and error-prone process. Considering the ongoing development of products, the variability model has to be adapted frequently. These changes often lead to mistakes, such that some products cannot be derived from the model anymore, that undesired products are derivable or that there are contradictions in the variability model. In this paper, we propose an approach to discover and to explain contradictions in attributed feature models efficiently in order to assist the developer with the correction of mistakes. We use extended feature models with attributes and arithmetic constraints, translate them into a constraint satisfaction problem and explore those for contradictions. When a contradiction is found, the constraints are searched for a set of contradicting relations by the QuickXplain algorithm.Comment: In Proceedings FMSPLE 2015, arXiv:1504.0301

Developing an inter-enterprise alignment maturity model: research challenges and solutions

Business-IT alignment is pervasive today, as organizations strive to achieve competitive advantage. Like in other areas, e.g., software development, maintenance and IT services, there are maturity models to assess such alignment. Those models, however, do not specifically address the aspects needed for achieving alignment between business and IT in inter-enterprise settings. In this paper, we present the challenges we face in the development of an inter-enterprise alignment maturity model, as well as the current solutions to counter these problems

Capturing System Intentionality with Maps

International audienceConceptual modelling has emerged as a means to capture the relevant aspects of the world on which it is necessary to provide information. Whereas conceptual models succeeded in telling us how to represent some excerpt of the world in informational terms, they failed to guide system analysts in conceptualising purposeful systems, i.e. systems that meet the expectations of their users. This chapter aims to investigate this issue of conceptualising purposeful systems and to discuss the role that goal driven approaches can play to resolve it. It considers the challenge of new systems having a multifaceted purpose and shows how intention/strategy maps help facing this challenge

Organization Size, IT Capabilities, and EA Perceptions: Dark Clouds on the ERP Horizon?

The relationship between enterprise architecture (EA) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems can be a synergistic one, leading to improved organizational and IT capabilities, practices, and mission success. However, in examining this relationship, organization size must be considered since it plays an important role in influencing the success of these enterprise initiatives. This paper analyzes the responses of IT professionals to the SIM Information Management Practices Survey and discusses the relationship of organization size to the EA and ERP relationship and to IT capabilities within organizations