Lecture 5: DCR Graphs I

Question 1

The Three Dimensions of Business Processes

Answer 1

• Complexity
• Predictability
• Repetitiveness

Question 2

Complexity

Answer 2

What is the degree of difficulty incollaboration, decision-making and collaboration?

• Lowcomplexity: exchanging a personal email message, handling a travel request
• Highcomplexity: Payment of unemployment benefits, medical treatments

Question 3

Predictability

Answer 3

How easy it is to predict how the process will execute, and the possible outcomes:

• Lowpredictability: Exchanging personal email messages. Payment of unemploymentbenefits
• Highpredictability: Handling travel requests, manufacturing product lines

Question 4

Repetitiveness

Answer 4

How often do you run this process?

• Lowfrequency: Disaster mitigation
• Highfrequency Manufacturing product lines

Question 5

BPM Systems

Answer 5

BPM systems support collaboration, coordination and decision-making in business processes

• Groupware systems support human collaboration and co-decisions
• Workflow management systems explicitly control ordering, coordination and execution of activitieswith little human intervention

Question 6

Flexibility & Support

Answer 6

• Flexibility: To which degree theusers can take local decisions about how to execute the process
• Support: To which degree the system makes centralized decisions about how to execute the process

Question 7

BPMS and Decision-making

Answer 7

INSERT TABLE

Question 8

Trends in BPM

Answer 8

Imperative Modelling

• Traditional, repetitive processes
• E.g. flowcharts, activity diagrams

Declarative Modelling

-Knowledge-intensive, highly-variableprocesses· -E.g. constraints, DCR Graphs

Question 9

Understanding a process

Answer 9

• What are the roles?
• What are the activities?
• What are the start and goal activities?
• What resources are necessary for activities?
• How are activities ordered?

Question 10

Scenarios

Answer 10

• Positive:We should support this!
• Neutral: Wemight support this (partial trace)
• Negative:We want to avoid this!

Question 11

Constraints in DCR Graphs

Answer 11

Much richer than the simple “precedence sequence flow” connector in imperative languages

Types of constraints

Conditions

Responses

Dynamic Inclusion

Dynamic Exclusion

Milestones

Question 12

Conditions

Answer 12

Denote a simple precedence constraint. A => B expresses that B cannot be donebefore A is done.

Question 13

Responses

Answer 13

Denotes anobligation constraint. A => B expresses that the execution of Awill result in execution of B being obligatory(must be done).

Will turn B into the pending state (!)

Question 14

Dynamic Exclusions

Answer 14

Used to establish negation/inhibition. A =>% B expresses that the execution of A inhibits theexecution of B.

Question 15

Dynamic Inclusions

Answer 15

Denotes anobligation constraint. A =>+ ifexecuting A makes B available for execution

Question 16

Correctness

Answer 16

Scenarios allows the tracing of desirable and undesirable simulations. Replaying them after modification of the process allows to check whether changes areconservative (do not break consistency)