Talk given at MoRoCo workshop at ECSCW 2013 in Paphos, Cyprus

1. Towards Role-Distributed
Collaborative Business
Process Elicitation
Stefan Oppl
Johannes Kepler University of Linz

2. Context
• Retrieve process knowledge where it actually
resides - at the people involved in the work
process
• Account for different understandings of how
work is/should be performed and who is
collaborating with whom
• Create model that is valid for further processing
(e.g. executable)

3. History

4. Problem
• Lay-modelers are rarely used to step out of
their immediate work system and take a bird-
eyes-view
• Very heterogenous involvement of people
• Created models are of limited use for further
processing

5. Idea
• Separate modeling along involved roles
• Describe individual contributions to work
regarding activities and communication with
others
• Consolidate role-models to form a common
model of the work process

6. Approach
• Actors in each involved role describe their
contribution to the work process (i.e.
activities) per role
• Overall model is created by collaboratively
bringing together the model parts and
resolving conflicts that become apparent
during coupling

7. Modeling Elements
• Roles
• Activities
• Messages
• send / receive
• expected from others / requested by others

8. Methodology

9. Variants
• ex-ante communication negotiation
• ex-post communication negotiation
• ongoing communication negotiation

10. Example: ex-post
communication negotiation
Develop model of work
environment
Develop models of individual
work contributions
Consolidate models of
individual contributions
Steps

11. Example: ex-post
communication negotiation
Develop model of work
environment
Develop models of individual
work contributions
Consolidate models of
individual contributions
Steps

12. Example: ex-post
communication negotiation
Develop model of work
environment
Develop models of individual
work contributions
Consolidate models of
individual contributions
Steps

13. Example: ex-post
communication negotiation
setting the stage
reflection on own
work
negotiation of
interfaces and
contributions
Objectives
Develop model of work
environment
Develop models of individual
work contributions
Consolidate models of
individual contributions
Steps

14. Example: ex-post
communication negotiation
setting the stage
reflection on own
work
negotiation of
interfaces and
contributions
Objectives
conceptualization,
no constraints
procedural
modeling
communication-
oriented modeling
Skills
Develop model of work
environment
Develop models of individual
work contributions
Consolidate models of
individual contributions
Steps

15. Tool support (I)

16. Tool support (II)

17. Findings
• produces incomplete process models
• immediate executability allows to complete
models while playing them through for validation
• different variants are suitable for different
objectives and target groups
• ongoing communication negotiation requires
experienced users and/or technical support

18. Contribution
• Low initial modeling complexity for lay-
modelers
• Resolution of different understandings of work
during elicitation
• Produces directly executable models

19. Ongoing Work
• More thorough evaluation of methodology in
all three variants in organizational and
teaching settings
• Tools support for elicitation and further
processing, especially refinement of models
through enactment validation