Intention‐driven modeling for flexible workflow applications

Abstract

AbstractDuring the early 1990s, workflow technologies were the only ones to offer a transversal integration capacity to the enterprise applications, thus allowing the representation and the enactment of business processes. However, the formalisms developed for workflow specifications were almost systematically activity oriented. Consequently, the resulting process definitions have the advantage to be easily transformable in executable code, but the disadvantage of being prescriptive and rigid. Recent works underline the needs in term of flexible and adaptive workflows, whose execution can evolve according to situations that cannot always be prescribed. In fact, a flexible representation of business processes is an asset to maintain the fit between business processes and their supporting systems in an evolving environment. This article proposes a conceptual framework for an intention‐driven modeling of flexible workflow applications. The purpose of the underlying modeling formalism is to define an integration/orchestration for islands of business process chunks and their support systems in order to create and to maintain the fit between them. The modeling framework offers the ability to represent in the same business process definition the well‐structured process chunks as well as the ill‐structured or ad hoc ones. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.