Introduction to ProcessCodi; a social BPM based on opensource and originated from uengine.org

1. uEngine.org
White paper
ProcessCodi: A Social BPM or more.
JaeHoon Lee, Ph. D.
Principal research engineer, uEngineSolutions
20 March 2011
BPM Crisis – Will the traditional BPM still beneficial to modern organizations?
Ever since Hammer (1992) insisted the importance of business processes１, BPM has become one of the famous
methods for enterprise management and improvement. BPM allowed companies to standardize their business
processes, automate tasks by IT systems, and monitor the critical business activities in real time. It is obvious
that the key to success to BPM is its systematic approach to define, execute, control, and evaluate business
processes. This approach is especially powerful when to adapt to the traditional companies which have
hierarchical organizations, standardized job description, and division of labor. On the other hands, modern
enterprises become more agile, knowledge-based, and flexible structured. So a question arises; is the traditional
BPM still beneficial to recent organizations?
<Figure 1> Smart workers’ workflow in a knowledge based company
The new type of organization; knowledge-based companies are different or in opposition to the traditional one in
１
M. Hammer, and J. A. Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, Harper
Business Books, New York, 1993.

2. various aspects. First of all, traditional BPM is based on “plan and control” strategy, which makes involved
workers passive and stressful by continuous monitoring, feedback, and reminding. On the contrary, knowledge-
based companies control their workers as less as possible so that they can concentrate on their tasks perfectly. In
addition, traditional BPM makes a certain boundaries of authorities and responsibilities. Whereas knowledge-
based companies are sometimes very unclear of organizational boundaries and even they are indistinctive
between a company and its outside area.
Figure 1 depicts a simple example of the problem stated. In a knowledge-based company, smart workers –
mostly the key resources of an organization – do not only act within the boundary of a company. They learn
much from the outside, communicate with experts, and make decisions in anytime / anywhere based on mobile
devices. Figure 1 clearly shows that there exist two separated areas of business concerns; 1) a company which
has hierarchical organizations, standardized and regulated business processes, and centralized systems, and 2)
the outside the company, where non-business activities, experts, social networks, and atypical resources exist.
Interestingly, knowledge-based workflow needs to cross the two areas. However, the boundary in the middle
appears that it will disturb both the business processes and knowledge flow of smart workers. The boundary can
appear in either engineering perspective or business perspective.
What is social BPM and what is different?
Social BPM is a new trend of BPM and already has been introduced by the leading BPM vendors. According to
Clay in Forrester, social BPM refers to processes developed and improved through the use of social technologies
and techniques２. We are already familiar with social tools of Web 2.0 such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and
others. More practically, IBM emphasizes two features of social BPM; community dynamics and
collaborations３.
Is social BPM merely an integration of BPM and social networks? It may be a simple issue in engineering
perspective but a complicated matter in management perspective. BPM is based on the idea that a business
process is an object to be clearly defined, measured, controlled, and standardized. However, the concept of
social networks is somewhat opposed to the traditional one. Social networks are characterized by unstructured
knowledge flow, informal activities, and independency on organizational regulations. Thus, social BPM has to
possess both the S/W functionalities of integrating social networks into a business systems and the cultural
environment which motivates collaboration and voluntary participation.
ProcessCodi: Social BPM or more.
uEngine.org – one of the famous open-source BPM vendors is planning to launch a new social BPM;
ProcessCodi. It inherits our strengths; open source based flexible architecture and customization, and active
community with world-wide developer participants. uEngine users and developers already have accustomed to
the collaborative and open business environment. In addition to that, ProcessCodi reinforced the concept of Web
2.0 and mobile interfaces.
Figure 2 shows that ProcessCodi enables to interact with the two main social resources. Through ProcessCodi,
business process performers in the company can use the Web 2.0 tools in an integrated environment. On top of
that, they can also communicate with the relevant people with the tasks such as domain experts, expert groups,
and potential clients to get supports, collaborate, and understand the atmosphere around the company.
２
Clay Richardson, Is Social BPM A Methodology, A Technology, Or Just A Lot Of Hype?, Forrester blogs,
http://blogs.forrester.com/clay_richardson
３
Wilfred C. Jamison, BPM Voices: Get social with IBM and BPM, IBM developer works, 2010.

3. Ultimately ProcessCodi enables to orchestrate the heterogeneous cultures; the controlled business processes and
the knowledge-based innovative business processes.
<Figure 2> ProcessCodi as a gateway to social tools and people in networks
<Figure 3> ProcessCodi a) and ProcessTouch b)
ProcessCodi has new features of user interface in both Web and mobile environment. Customized UXs
according to user’s preference are provided. Figure 3 a) shows the main portal which consists of four main area
of 1) business category, 2) social network, 3) relevant process instances, and 4) contents based on the user-
friendly UX. During a user’s activity, these elements will show up to support him/her whenever necessary
automatically and dynamically.
<Figure 4> ProcessCodi; AS-IS vs. TO-BE.

4. Moreover, ProcessCodi provides a mobile based BPM tool; ProcessTouch (Figure 3. b). It plays a role of is
offline process trigger and makes up the weak points of BPM which is rarely applicable to offline business
activities. ProcessTouch enables process participants to start and connect to the processes without restriction of
time and physical locations.
What will the new social BPM bring to organizations? There are many superficial aspects of social BPM as
listed in Figure 4 such as self-motivations, collective intelligence, extension of BPM to the off-line business
activities, or new compensation system based on social activity. However, the ultimate goal of ProcessCodi will
be to design and implementation of smart-working cultures into an organization. It maximizes the performance
of workers, raises job satisfaction, and gain the competency of a knowledge-based company.
About the author
JaeHoon Lee, Ph.D.
Dr. JH Lee has spent almost five years in the area of BPM in both theory and application. He has the
records of academic research papers for BPM in various industries such as medical, quality
engineering, and applied statistics. Recently, Dr. Lee has been working with uEngine.org, which is
one of the world famous open-source BPM projects.