Exploring the Dynamic Costs of Process-aware Information Systems through Simulation

Introducing process-aware information systems (PAIS) in enterprises (e.g., workflow management systems, case handling systems) is associated with high costs. Though cost evaluation has received considerable attention in software engineering for many years, it is difficult to apply existing evaluation approaches to PAIS. This difficulty particularly stems from the inability of these techniques to deal with the complex interplay of the many technological, organizational and project-driven factors which emerge in the context of PAIS engineering projects. In response to this problem this paper proposes an approach which utilizes simulation models for investigating costs related to PAIS engineering projects. We motivate the need for simulation, discuss the design and execution of simulation models, and give an illustrating example

The Human version of Moore-Shannon's Theorem: The Design of Reliable Economic Systems

Moore & Shannon's theorem is the cornerstone in reliability theory, but cannot be applied to human systems in its original form. A generalization to human systems would therefore be of considerable interest because the choice of organization structure can remedy reliability problems that notoriously plaque business operations, financial institutions, military intelligence and other human activities. Our main result is a proof that provides answers to the following three questions. Is it possible to design a reliable social organization from fallible human individuals? How many fallible human agents are required to build an economic system of a certain level of reliability? What is the best way to design an organization of two or more agents in order to minimize error? On the basis of constructive proofs, this paper provides answers to these questions and thus offers a method to analyze any form of decision making structure with respect to its reliability.Organizational design; reliability theory; decision making; project selection

Web-Based Modelling and Collaborative Simulation of Declarative Processes.

Abstract. As a provider of Electronic Case Management solutions to knowledge-intensive businesses and organizations, the Danish company Exformatics has in recent years identified a need for flexible process support in the tools that we pro-vide to our customers. We have addressed this need by adapting DCR Graphs, a formal declarative workflow notation developed at the IT University of Copen-hagen. Through close collaboration with academia we first integrated execution support for the notation into our existing tools, by leveraging a cloud-based pro-cess engine implementing the DCR formalism. Over the last two years we have taken this adoption of DCR Graphs to the next level and decided to treat the nota-tion as a product of its own by developing a stand-alone web-based collaborative portal for the modelling and simulation of declarative workflows. The purpose of the portal is to facilitate end-user discussions on how knowledge workers really work, by enabling collaborative simulation of processes. In earlier work we re-ported on the integration of DCR Graphs as a workflow execution formalism in the existing Exformatics ECM products. In this paper we report on the advances we have made over the last two years, we describe the new declarative process modelling portal, discuss its features, describe the process of its development, re-port on the findings of an initial evaluation of the usability of the tool, resulting from a tutorial on declarative modelling with DCR Graphs that we organized at last years BPM conference and present our plans for the future

An information assistant system for the prevention of tunnel vision in crisis management

In the crisis management environment, tunnel vision is a set of bias in decision makers’ cognitive process which often leads to incorrect understanding of the real crisis situation, biased perception of information, and improper decisions. The tunnel vision phenomenon is a consequence of both the challenges in the task and the natural limitation in a human being’s cognitive process. An information assistant system is proposed with the purpose of preventing tunnel vision. The system serves as a platform for monitoring the on-going crisis event. All information goes through the system before arrives at the user. The system enhances the data quality, reduces the data quantity and presents the crisis information in a manner that prevents or repairs the user’s cognitive overload. While working with such a system, the users (crisis managers) are expected to be more likely to stay aware of the actual situation, stay open minded to possibilities, and make proper decisions