Mixed-initiative management of dynamic business processes

Abstract

Managing and participating in complex, dynamic business processes is difficult due to their inherent uncertainty, which undermines the predictability necessary for efficient planning and execution. Effective management of these processes hinges on the ability of the manager to recognize unanticipated difficulties in the process execution, determine the causes of the anomalies, and implement remedies. Current process-management approaches respond reactively to process dynamics, if they deal with them at all. In this paper, we present the ProME process-management environment, focusing on how human process managers and participants interact with a dynamic, online model of executing dynamic processes to proactively manage and operate in dynamic business processes. We show how having the best information available about a process and its future can provide managers with the time needed to detect and understand impending process anomalies and to develop and implement effective interventions. Furthermore, we show enabling managers how to update the model of executing processes and having the effects of those modifications to be pushed to the relevant participants reduces the time it takes to implement remedies, ProME was used in a commercial product for managing design processes in the automotive and aerospace industries.