189 research outputs found
An Audience Centred Approach to Business Process Reengineering
This paper describes a method for process modelling which is designed to provide guidance to the business process modeller. The method has evolved from our experience of attempting to apply software process modelling approaches to business processes. A major influence on the method has been our observations that a pragmatic approach to notation selection is required in order to maintain a
meaningful dialogue with end-users. Business process modelling methods typically fall into two camps. General methods attempt to describe the managerial activities which surround the modelling itself (Coulson-Thomas, 94; GISIP, 95). Specific methods, on the other hand, tend to
concentrate on the details of a particular notational approach. However, as with programming languages or design methods, no single notational approach is best suited to all problems. Ideally, the process modeller should be able to incorporate the appropriate notational approach into some coherent generic modelling method.This paper addresses the needs of the modeller at the detailed level without prescribing a specific notation. This is achieved by describing categories of modelling activities which the modeller should undertake within process modelling, and
suggesting how notations may be used within these categories. Our method is generally applicable, and is illustrated here by models of processes within the
Construction industry
Instances and connectors : issues for a second generation process language
This work is supported by UK EPSRC grants GR/L34433 and GR/L32699Over the past decade a variety of process languages have been defined, used and evaluated. It is now possible to consider second generation languages based on this experience. Rather than develop a second generation wish list this position paper explores two issues: instances and connectors. Instances relate to the relationship between a process model as a description and the, possibly multiple, enacting instances which are created from it. Connectors refers to the issue of concurrency control and achieving a higher level of abstraction in how parts of a model interact. We believe that these issues are key to developing systems which can effectively support business processes, and that they have not received sufficient attention within the process modelling community. Through exploring these issues we also illustrate our approach to designing a second generation process language.Postprin
Instances and connectors : issues for a second generation process language
This work is supported by UK EPSRC grants GR/L34433 and GR/L32699Over the past decade a variety of process languages have been defined, used and evaluated. It is now possible to consider second generation languages based on this experience. Rather than develop a second generation wish list this position paper explores two issues: instances and connectors. Instances relate to the relationship between a process model as a description and the, possibly multiple, enacting instances which are created from it. Connectors refers to the issue of concurrency control and achieving a higher level of abstraction in how parts of a model interact. We believe that these issues are key to developing systems which can effectively support business processes, and that they have not received sufficient attention within the process modelling community. Through exploring these issues we also illustrate our approach to designing a second generation process language.Postprin
Supporting process reuse in PROMENADE
Process reuse (the ability to construct new processes by assembling already built ones) and process harvesting (the ability to build generic processes
that may be further reused, from existing ones) are two crucial issues in
process technology. Both activities involve defining a set of mechanisms,
like abstraction, adaptation, composition, etc. which are appropriate to
achieve their goals. In this report, we define a general framework to
process reuse and harvesting that proposes a complete set of mechanisms to
deal with both activities. This general framework is particularized to the
context of a process modelling language to model software processes, called
PROMENADE. A definition of the identified reuse and harvesting mecha-nisms
is proposed in the context of PROMENADE. Finally, two process reuse case
studies which composes various reuse mechanisms are presented.Postprint (published version
Using Enactable Models to Enhance Use Case Descriptions, March 2003
Many tools developed for process modelling either
model client business processes or the software
development process itself. In both cases, benefits are to
be found by using the model to highlight real process
problems either of clients or developers. However, the
modelling of client business processes allows a further
opportunity for gain, where the intention is to build a
system to provide support for the process being modelled.
Although process models inform the requirements
process, by providing clarity and understanding at the
business modelling stage, the potential of such technology
is often lost in the subsequent development phases.
The premise of the work described here is to use
enactable state-based approaches, previously used
successfully in business process modelling and
simulation, to improve artefacts of requirements
engineering, by providing enactable versions of use case
descriptions. This allows for the kind of validation and
checking so useful to business models. In particular, such
models can be used to inform design, by providing
rigorous scrutiny of the (low-level) details of use case
behaviour.
The efficacy of this approach was gauged initially by
producing enactable equivalents of use case descriptions
using the existing process modelling language and tool
RolEnact. However, industrial application also found that
there was a mapping overhead and, hence, end users
were reluctant to devote their time to producing enactable
use cases without increased automation. This suggested a
pressing need for tool support. That is, a use-case
description tool which provided enaction capability, but
without need for any further description. A prototype use
case enaction tool is, therefore, introduced, along with a
discussion of development issues and possible future
directions
Recommended from our members
A BPM-Systems Architecture That Supports Dynamic and Collaborative Processes
Business Process Management Systems (BPMSs) are increasingly implemented in and across organizations. However, the current combination of functionality, concepts and characteristics in BPMSs is very much based on an industrial-based view of the economy while western economies are rapidly moving towards an information and service economy in which the ratio of knowledge workers is rising dramatically. Compared to the ‘old’ type of worker the knowledge worker is typically highly educated, used to collaborating with other knowledge workers and less likely to be sensitive to a controlling style of management in the execution of his or her work. While many organizations are initiating business process improvement projects to improve their processes, this is done with BPM-systems that are based on an old paradigm and therefore unable to support dynamic and collaborative processes. In this paper we propose a new architecture for BPM-systems that include functionality to support knowledge workers in their dynamic and collaborative activities and processes
A Lightweight State Machine for Validating Use Case Descriptions
This paper presents a tool to provide an enaction
capability for use case descriptions. Use cases have
wide industry acceptance and are well suited for
constructing initial approximations of the intended
behaviour. However, use case descriptions are still
relatively immature with respect to precise syntax
and semantics. Hence, despite promising work on
providing writing guidelines, rigorous validation of
use case descriptions requires further support.
One approach to supporting validation is to use
enaction. Indeed, enactable models have been used
extensively within process modelling to clarify
understanding of descriptions.
Given the importance of requirements validation,
such automated support promises significant benefits.
However, the need to produce formal descriptions, to
drive enaction, is often seen as a barrier to the takeup
of such technologies. That is, developers have
traditionally been reluctant to increase the
proportion of effort devoted to requirements
activities. Our approach involves the development of
a lightweight state-machine, which obviates any need
to create intermediate formal descriptions, thereby
maintaining the simple nature of the use case
description.
Hence, this 'lightweight' approach, which provides
an enaction capability ‘for minimal effort’, increases
the likelihood of industrial take-up
Software process modeling languages: A systematic literature review
Context
Organizations working in software development are aware that processes are very important assets as well as they are very conscious of the need to deploy well-defined processes with the goal of improving software product development and, particularly, quality. Software process modeling languages are an important support for describing and managing software processes in software-intensive organizations.
Objective
This paper seeks to identify what software process modeling languages have been defined in last decade, the relationships and dependencies among them and, starting from the current state, to define directions for future research.
Method
A systematic literature review was developed. 1929 papers were retrieved by a manual search in 9 databases and 46 primary studies were finally included.
Results
Since 2000 more than 40 languages have been first reported, each of which with a concrete purpose. We show that different base technologies have been used to define software process modeling languages. We provide a scheme where each language is registered together with the year it was created, the base technology used to define it and whether it is considered a starting point for later languages. This scheme is used to illustrate the trend in software process modeling languages. Finally, we present directions for future research.
Conclusion
This review presents the different software process modeling languages that have been developed in the last ten years, showing the relevant fact that model-based SPMLs (Software Process Modeling Languages) are being considered as a current trend. Each one of these languages has been designed with a particular motivation, to solve problems which had been detected. However, there are still several problems to face, which have become evident in this review. This let us provide researchers with some guidelines for future research on this topic.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2010-20057-C03-02Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN 2010-12312-EJunta de Andalucía TIC-578
L'E-Lyee, Coupling L'Ecritoire and LyeeALL
International audienceThe paper deals with the requirements engineering environment provided by L'Ecritoire to the L'E-Lyee project. The project aims to reduce the software development cycle to two explicit steps, requirements engineering and program generation, by coupling L'Ecritoire to the program generation features of LyeeALL. The basis of L'Ecritoire is a set of enactable rules to guide the requirements elicitation process through interleaved goal modelling and scenario authoring. The paper gives an overview of the enactment rules and illustrates their use through a L'Ecritoire session. Thereafter, the matching of the technical features of L'Ecritoire with those of LyeeALL is outlined and the resulting benefits are highlighted
Requirement validation with enactable descriptions of use cases.
The validation of stakeholder requirements for a software system is a pivotal activity for any nontrivial software development project. Often, differences in knowledge regarding development issues, and knowledge regarding the problem domain, impede the elaboration of requirements amongst developers and stakeholders. A description technique that provides a user perspective of the system
behaviour is likely to enhance shared understanding between the developers and stakeholders. The Unified Modelling Language (UML) use case is such a notation. Use cases describe the behaviour of a system (using natural language) in terms of interactions between the external users and the system. Since the standardisation of the UML by the Object Management Group in 1997, much research has been devoted to use cases. Some researchers have focussed on the provision of writing guidelines for use case specifications whereas others have focussed on the application of formal techniques. This thesis investigates the adequacy of the use case description for the specification and validation of
software behaviour. In particular, the thesis argues that whereas the user-system interaction scheme underpins the essence of the use case notation, the UML specification of the use case does not provide a mechanism by which use cases can describe dependencies amongst constituent interaction steps. Clarifying these issues is crucial for validating the adequacy of the specification against stakeholder expectations. This thesis proposes a state-based approach (the Educator approach) to use case specification where constituent events are augmented with pre and post states to express both intra-use case and
inter-use case dependencies. Use case events are enacted to visualise implied behaviour, thereby enhancing shared understanding among users and developers. Moreover, enaction provides an early "feel" of the behaviour that would result from the implementation of the specification. The Educator approach and the enaction of descriptions are supported by a prototype environment, the EducatorTool,
developed to demonstrate the efficacy and novelty of the approach. To validate the work presented in this thesis an industrial study, involving the specification of realtime
control software, is reported. The study involves the analysis of use case specifications of the subsystems prior to the application of the proposed approach, and the analysis of the specification where the approach and tool support are applied. This way, it is possible to determine the efficacy of the Educator approach within an industrial setting
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