Process of Process Modeling Flashcards
How to conduct process modeling?
- State objectives and scope
- Concept and tool selection
- Process elicitation
- Create process model
- Validate and analyze the process model
- Analyze the process
1. Objectives and scope
- What is the objective of the process modeling effort?
- What is the scope?
- Which aspects are of special interest?
- Who is the future user of the model?
- Which views should be supported?
What is a perspective?
- A subset of information contained in a model.
- A perpspective highlights part of a model which are interesting for answering given questions.
Common Perspectives
- Functional
- Behavioral
- Organizational
- Informational
2. Concept and tool selection
- Gather information about your environemnt
- Evaluate available (and tool-supported) process model formalisms
- Gather information about existing tools
- Select promising candidates
- Choose a tool.
3. Process elicicitation
Preparation Phase: the process engineer sets up an initial process model based on available process documentation and past experiences
Iterative modeling Phase: The process engineer consults process (domain) experts to:
- Review the process model and get feedback
- Remove inconsistencies
- Collect missing information
The process engineer updates the process model, integrates views, points out inconsistencies and identifies gaps.
Process elicitation techniques
- Knowledge acquisition techniques
- Interviews
- Observation
- protocol analysis
- Structuring techniques
- Analysis of process documents
- Analysis of process artifacts
Interviews
The process engineer interviews process experts to elicit their view of the process. Both the process owner and process participants (agents) are considered to be process experts:
- What is done?
- When is it done?
- Things used and produced
- Who does it?
- How is it supported?
- Which constraints do exist?
Observation
The process engineer observes the process expert when actually performing a process
- Avoids biases introduced through interviews, but results might not be representative
- Very time consuming (thus costly) and intrusive
- A useful instance in practice: Attend group meetings
Collect additional information, verify findings of other elicitation techniques.
Protocol Analysis
- The process expert is provided with forms
- Keeps track of all activities, decisions, and of events that occurred during the process.
- These forms are later analyzed to gain information about the process that has been followed.
- Can produce vast amounts of data, manual analysis can be very time consuming
- Usually less intrusive than direct observation
Can be used for complex processes with many process agents.
Structuring techniques
- The process expert is asked to structure process related concepts in certain ways (e.g. card sorting)
- The results are analyzed
Assemble segments of a process model, i.e., information gathered from different sources or information about different entities into a coherent model:
- Solve conflicts
- Link views
Analysis of (external) process documents
The process engineer analyses process ralted documents, e.g. standards, organization charts, project plans.
The information unists found are linked to the process model schema, and an initial process model is built.
Can be done in advance and ‘off-line’, i.e. the process experts need not to be consulted.
The resulting process model is usually fragmentary, and can differ strongly from the actual process.
Good starting point for any process modeling activity.
Analysis of process artifacts
The process engineer analyses artifacts produced during process performance. major groups of artifacts are:
- Deliverables (including drafts)
- Information kept to manage the process (e.g. memos, minutes of meetings, timesheets, budget calculations)
Usually not sufficient to produce a comprehensive process model.
Supplementary to the analysis of process documents verify certain aspects or parts of a process.
5. Process model verification and analysis
Statistc Process Model Analysis:
- Completeness
- Correctness
- Consistency
- Redundancies
Dynamic Process Model Analysis:
- Focuses on possible behaviors
- Process simulations can be used in addition
6. Process analysis
High Risk Patterns
- High concentration of responsibilities in one position
- Dependencies across too many hierarchy levels
- Too many tasks in parallel
- An excessive number of feedback loops.
