Dynamic Workflow-Engine

We present and assess the novel thesis that a language commonly accepted for requirement elicitation is worth using for configuration of business process automation systems. We suggest that Cockburn's well accepted requirements elicitation language - the written use case language, with a few extensions, ought to be used as a workflow modelling language. We evaluate our thesis by studying in detail an industrial implementation of a workflow engine whose workflow modelling language is our extended written use case language; by surveying the variety of business processes that can be expressed by our extended written use case language; and by empirically assessing the readability of our extended written use case language. Our contribution is sixfold: (i) an architecture with which a workflow engine whose workflow modelling language is an extended written use case language can be built, configured, used and monitored; (ii) a detailed study of an industrial implementation of use case oriented workflow engine; (iii) assessment of the expressive power of the extended written use case language which is based on a known pattern catalogue; (iv) another assessments of the expressive power of the extended written use case language which is based on an equivalence to a formal model that is known to be expressive; (v) an empirical evaluation in industrial context of the readability of our extended written use case language in comparison to the readability of the incumbent graphical languages; and (vi) reflections upon the state of the art, methodologies, our results, and opportunities for further research. Our conclusions are that a workflow engine whose workflow modelling language is an extended written use case language can be built, configured, used and monitored; that in an environment that calls upon an extended written use case language as a workflow modelling language, the transition between the modelling and verification state, enactment state, and monitoring state is dynamic; that a use case oriented workflow engine was implemented in industrial settings and that the approach was well accepted by management, workflow configuration officers and workflow participants alike; that the extended written use case language is quite expressive, as much as the incumbent graphical languages; and that in industrial context an extended written use case language is an efficient communication device amongst stakeholders

Workflow Patterns Represented in Use-Cases

Abstract. While workflow enactment is often configured through a workflow description language based on graphs or rules, an alternative approach takes written Use-Cases to describe a workflow. In this paper we give evidence for the expressive richness of this approach. We show that written Use-Cases can describe each of the 43 workflow patterns identified by the Workflow Patterns Initiative.

Making Sense of Business Process Descriptions: An Experimental Comparison of Graphical and Textual Notations

How effective is a notation in conveying the writer's intent correctly? This paper identifies understandability of design notations as an important aspect which calls for an experimental comparison. We compare the success of university students in interpreting business process descriptions, for an established graphical notation (BPMN) and for an alternative textual notation (based on written use-cases). Because a design must be read by diverse communities, including technically-trained professionals such as developers and business analysts, as well as end-users and stakeholders from a wider business setting, we used different types of participants in our experiment. Specifically, we included those who had formal training in process description, and others who had not. Our experiments showed significant increases by both groups in their understanding of the process from reading the textual model. This was not so for the graphical model, where only the trained readers showed significant increases. This finding points at the value of educating readers of graphical descriptions in that particular notation when they become exposed to such models in their daily work