1. www.realdolmen.com
Introduction to jBPM 4
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 1

2. (*) Input: “Hype Cycle for Business Process Management, 2008”
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 2

3. APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 3

4. WHAT‟S THE FUSS ALL ABOUT?
“Business process”

 An (organized) way of “doing things”
 … with certain goal (eg making money)
 Not an IT concept
 1723-1790, Adam Smith: The pin factory
 1863-1947, Henry Ford: mass production
– Assembly lines
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 4

5. NOT AN IT CONCEPT
 1900-1993, William Edwards Deming
 Japanese production boom (after WWII)
 Quality control techniques
 Improved production through insight in processes
PLAN
 (Deming) quality circle
ACT DO
CHECK
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 5

6. BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE EVERYWHERE
 Tax system
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 6

7. BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE EVERYWHERE
 Tax system
 Library: acquiring and returning a book
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 7

8. BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE EVERYWHERE
 Tax system
 Library: acquiring and returning a book
 Ordering a ticket for a concert
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 8

9. BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE EVERYWHERE
 Tax system
 Library: acquiring and returning a book
 Ordering a ticket for a concert
 Getting up in the morning
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 9

10. BUSINESS PROCESSES ARE EVERYWHERE
 Tax system
 Library: acquiring and returning a book
 Ordering a ticket for a concert
 Getting up in the morning
…

 Any company - any product - any service
 They all have business processes
 Which means
 Business processes = doing business
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 10

11. THE POWER OF PICTURES
 Communication medium  the diagram
 Simple and easy to understand
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 11

12. APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 12

13. APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 13

14. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
 Business processes are ubiquitous
 This doesn‟t mean that people are aware of them …
 This doesn‟t mean that they are controlled or guided …
 This doesn‟t mean that everyone is using the same process …
  Managing processes
 Discipline
 Organizational change needed
 One must know, understand and follow the business process
 Thinking in processes, intra- and interbusiness
 Control / guiding / insight
 Is the work that‟s being done in comformance with the process?
 Technology can help, but it is not required to „do BPM‟
 „BPM suites‟
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 14

15. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
 It all depends on the stakeholders point of view
Perception Vendor
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 15

16. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
 It all depends on the stakeholders point of view!
Perception Process analyst
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 16

17. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
 It all depends on the stakeholders point of view!
Perception Manager
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 17

18. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
 It all depends on the stakeholders point of view!
Perception Project manager
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 18

19. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
• Expectations are high!
• In the end, the people in the trenches
will determine the success of your BPM
Reality
project
• You can have the most effective designed
process in the world
• It‟s useless if people don‟t use it
• People need to understand it
• People need to be trained and consulted
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 19

20. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
• And what about management?
• Today: „crisis management‟
• Treating symptons, not the cause
• BPM allows to provide insight
• Managers need to have a deep understanding
of how the business operates to make correct
decisions
• Insight allows to change & optimise the
current business processes
• Reactive  proactive  predictive mgmt
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 20

21. BPM SELLING POINTS
 Bridge between IT & the business
 No disconnection between
 What business expects
 What IT delivers
 And forcing the business people to align
 Business changes are rapidely implemented
 Agile
 Visibility
 Monitoring, CEP, KPI, data-mining, …
 Making decisions in real-time
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 21

22. CONCLUSION
 So by now you should know
 BPM is not about buying a killer-app and using it
 (But that‟s often how it is sold)
 Technology can be used to unlock BPM for your company
 BPM products (or „suites‟)
This all sounds nice, doesn‟t it?

 … so why is not every software BPM (yet)?
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 22

23. APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 23

24. BPM MARKET
 Many players
 Open-source and commercial
 Long history
But … no standardization,

no specs, …
 Some initiatives
 OMG, OASIS, WFMX
 BPMN, BPEL, XPDL
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 24

25. BPM LIFECYLE
 BPM products
 Currently: no specs, no portability, …
 Only common functionality of BPM suites: the BPM lifecycle:
Design/modeling
Optimization Execution
Monitoring
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 25

26. BPM LIFECYCLE
Design/modeling
 Problem: translate diagram to executable code
 Typical BPM marketing: business analyst „plug & play‟
 (Un)fortunately the world is gray
– Transactions, integrations with other systems, performance, …
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 26

27. BPM LIFECYCLE
Design/modeling
 Jbpm approach
 Recognize that there is difference between business-wise
business processes and technical processes
 Developers-friendly BPM framework
 How to communicate?
 One source, different views …
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 27

28. BPM LIFECYCLE
Execution
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 28

29. BPM LIFECYCLE
Jbpm parser
Execution
Jbpm
Jbpm Services
Pojo’s
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 29

30. BPM LIFECYCLE
Monitoring
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 30

31. BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
Really, it‟s not an invention of IT

Design/modeling
PLAN
Optimization Execution
ACT DO
CHECK Monitoring
BPM lifecycle
Deming circle
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 31

32. JBPM 4 VS JBPM 3: BPM MODELING
 A discipline
 Drawing the diagram == the final step of process design
 Specialized staff needed (with business knowlegde)
 No standarization
 Proprietary symbols and semantics
 No diagram portability
 BPMN effort (OMG)
 Business process modeling Notation
 Open standard for drawing business processes
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 32

33. APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 33

34. TYPICAL BPM SOFTWARE
BPM
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 34

35. JBOSS JBPM TO THE RESCUE
 BPM engine
 http://www.jbpm.org
 Built on Hibernate
 Development started 2003
 Tom Baeyens
 Koen Aers
 Alejandro Guizar
 Thomas Diesler
 Heiko Braun
 Current: 3.3.1 GA / 4.0.0 A2
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 35

36. JBPM TO THE RESCUE!
 Open source BPM solution
 No black-box magic
 Embeddable in any application
 Engine == 1 jar
 Non-monolithic approach
 Process language-independent (and spec-independent)
 Not BPEL centred as many vendors
 Based on VM for process languages (PVM)
 Easy for developers
 JPDL  Pojo based
 Performant This is only a teaser ;-)
 Hibernate(*)
 Jboss umbrella
(*)http://www.jorambarrez.be/blog/2008/04/14/short-jbpm-performance-showdown/
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 36

37. JBPM: PROCESS PLATFORM
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 37

38. WHY NOT BPEL AS MAIN LANGUAGE?
 Business Process Execution Language
 Many (major) vendors (eg Oracle, IBM, …)
 Web-service centric language
 Input has to be a webservice
 Output is a new webservice
 Communication == only through WSDL interfaces
 Xpath, Xquery
 Cumbersome … and no fun of development
 jBPM
 BPEL is not the (only) way to go
 Support for BPEL through PVM
 It makes sense in some environments
 But … jPDL is so much easier for developers
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 38

39. EXAMPLE PROCESS
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 39

40. JBPM‟S BENEFITS
 Managing this process definition with the jBPM runtime allows
 To start and continue a process for a given book
 To retrieve the global current unfinished tasks
 To automatically trigger a Java class or predefined activity on a certain date
 To attach custom Java handler classes
 eg a Java call to the mainframe library system in Brussels
 To retrieve statistics about past and running processes
…
 To „do BPM‟ in developers-friendly/comfortable approach
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 40

41. WHY USE A BPM ENGINE?
 Any BPM app can be built without jBPM
 But how many if-else‟s you would need?
 Maintain it? How easy will it be to change the flow?
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 41

42. WHY USE A BPM ENGINE?
 BPM engine ~ state machine
 It‟ s no rocket science
 jBPM
 Years of experience solving
 Common problems
 Uncommon problems
 And event edgier cases
 All in one download
 Don‟t reinvent the wheel …
 Leave that up to wheel-builders
APRIL 1, 2009 | SLIDE 42