My predictions for 2012 for Process Modeling and BPM in General

On our Bosch Software Innovations blog, I have posted some observations concerning BPM/Business Rules Management or IBPM (intelligent BPM) and continued predictive conditions for 2012.

As we enter the 5^th year following the real-estate crisis of 2008, we still face hard efficiencies and economic realities both in the EU and the US. Process and Rules Methods and technologies will play a role but probably not the way you think.

The post is here:

http://blog.bosch-si.com/10-predictions-for-information-and-operational-technology/

Ten Business Rules Usage Patterns in BPM and Business Events

In my opinion, Progress Software's acquisition of Corticon marks the beginning of the end of the monolithic ‘rules-engine’. The idea that there is a business rules engine that is ‘called’ by a ‘program’ is past and there is a more nuanced understanding of the role of business. By my estimate there are at least 10 separate usages of business rules within business processes and business events.

Firstly, business rules play an important role in the rules-driven process pattern. The common monolithic conception of business rules is that it is only an element of a decision that affects the gateways of one process.
There are various opinions about this and certainly I have mine. Yet, it as the BPM industry matures it is probably wise to use more standard research methods to develop an approach. Researchers at Georgia State University and Utrecht University have identified five categories of business rules that have a behavioral influence on the business process in terms of mitigating operational risk or achieving compliance to regulation.
The five usage categories are:

1. Rules for task sequencing
2. Rules for actor inclusion or task assignment
3. Rules for effect sequencing or gateway conditions
4. Rules for data / information registration
5. Rules for detection control or event reponses

Briefly, these five usage categories are described:

Task Sequencing: these rules influence the position of one or multiple activities/events/decision (hence process elements) within a business process.  Most often, to create a process that is compliant with the business rules, process elements are simply added, re-ordered or removed. That is, the existing process model is updated to reflect the new rules.

Actor Inclusion/Interaction or Task Assignment: These are rules that influence the assignment of tasks or decision to specific actors. There are several approaches to creating a complaint process. Firstly, defined actors, in the form of participants, can be removed/added or appointed to different elements inside the process. In addition, a processes can call business rules to delegate the activity to the correct actor.

Effect Sequencing or Gateway Conditions: These rules influence the paths chosen by gateways or conditional sequences inside the process. This is the classic pattern of the values, created by the rules, setting the conditions at gateways and directing the flow of the process. That is: the path chosen is directed by an evaluation of business rules associated with individual transaction. This is more dynamic than task sequencing where rules influence the arrangement of the paths.  An example of effect sequencing is a shipping process where, depending on the needs of the shipment, different transportation process activities need to be executed. This is the most common perception of processes and rules. To make the process compliant, business rules need to be enforced during runtime.

Data / Information Registration or Event Responses: These rules influence the recording and viewing of data and information, and the authorization to access it. Most often, to create a process that is compliant with the business rules, internal controls govern timing: how long must the recorded data be kept accurate and the predefined format of complete or registered data. That is: the registered data must contain the following information and authorization, restricting access to predefined user and roles.

Detection Control or Event Reponses: These rules influence how a process responds to events. Events can be external or internal. External events might include weather, or financial events. Internal events arise from the direct or audited results of an activity or processes.  Most often, to create a process that is compliant with the business rules multiple solutions can be used: process elements can be added, reordered or removed, we can have the process respond to an ‘event channel’ or, a new business process can be created to perform the event control.

The last type can be expanded further. Business Events open another set of 5 patterns for business rules. In the Microguide we defined several classes of decision for event processing. These usually occur in the following order: 

1. Detection, 
2. Distribution, 
3. Aggregation 
4. Correlation 
5. Assignment

Not every event processor includes all of these steps. Also, after detection, it is not required for these steps to be executed in this order. The list shown is ideal, in theory, for all event processing situations.

Detection: In event detection, logic is applied to data monitored by the event detector. A business-relevant or ‘event-of interest’ is discovered when the event process matches the logic with the data.

Distribution: In event distribution, the detected event is immediately alerted to the affected process or systems, according the logic and levels of participation. Rules logic decides the level of involvement and the destination of the distributed event. Distribution logic can simplistic, as in a burglar alarm during irregular hours. Complex distribution logic might deliver the event based on the scale of the data within the event.
Events are distributed through two distinct patterns; either through a message, or a broadcast. The message corresponds to the BPMN message. Event processing targets the event activated messages at a process instance. The broadcast distribution method is denoted as a signal event in BPMN, and is analogous to a radio signal.  While a message persists after it is sent, a broadcast is only relevant for a short period of time.

Aggregation: Many business events are only meaningful in combination with other events of a similar or related nature. Logical significance might arise from the timing or temporal nature of the other events. In aggregation, event processing uses business rules logic to identify significant events from a group of events.
Correlation: Event processing includes a correlation step. Event processing can play a role, by detecting internal or external events and correlating these with concurrent processes or data in the enterprise. Active business processes might be identified as intended recipients. Business rules define what data or process states are included in the correlations and the logic of the match.

Assignment: At the conclusion of the cycle, in assignment, the event is assigned to one or more processes. Business rules can choose which process is assigned the event for action. As with all rules, the assignment can be as straightforward as the unconditional assignment to a single process or it can be a time, capability and dependent assignment.

An example of this is shown in the figure below:

Process modelers and business decision modelers use the three metaphors of business processes, business rule and business events these to model solutions. In early incarnation of the business rules engine, the BRMS was built as a separate engine to be included in a batch or separate process. Our understanding of the use of business rules has become more nuanced and more focused on the intended usages. If you model your processes with these rules your rules will be more focused and more compact.

Tom Debevoise

Process, Rules & Events: Critical Business Modeling Methods

Business process modeling, decisions, and business events describe the business, not the technical details. These are evolving, strategic management methods that meet today’s challenges. They work together to make it simple for an organization to update underlying rules or processes activities without complicated redeployments of production systems.

 

Figure for business rule pattern 3, the sequence or path of the process is controlled by the decision graph.

Over the last 5 years, BPM/BR represented a change in the language and symbols that we use to describe business models systems—these methods have become more business-centered and less tied to the technical details of systems. In the past, the IT industry has moved first from information engineering (IE), to object-oriented software engineering (OOSE), to use case analysis. Along the way, commercial off-the-shelf ERP software such as SAP and Oracle Financials became an important part of commonly used technology. The latest methods changed the focus from mathematical theories of data and functions into graphical notations of what the business does. For instance, IE uses an entity relationship diagram (ERD). The ERD depicts relational calculus formulas. A business process diagram, in BPMN, looks and acts like a white board, and business rules have similar graphical descriptions such as decision graphs and decision tables for the rules.

With older methods, data modeling and use case analysis created an immediately outdated technical snapshot of how the organization does business. Businesses always need to change their events, processes and rules to remain competitive. Data modeling and use case analysis do not easily help with these changes in applications. So, in some ways, software based on the metaphors of Process, Event and Decisions is the next step in modern software. Instead of writing programs in Java or C#, these organizations model what the business does in words and diagrams. To update the process or rule, you update the diagrams.

With the acquisition of Inubit, Bosch Software Innovations will soon be offering combined products for Business Process Management (BPM), Business Rules Management (BRM), Business Data Management, and Infrastructure Management. These products form the basis for applications in the Internet of Things and Services as well as for the development of business models based on those applications.

Part Two Use Cases for the Internet of Things: Definitions

In the things world, there are patterns of events, decisions and process responses.  Simplistically, there are 3 classes of ‘things’:

• Appliances, including machinery such as electric vehicle charging stations
• Energy Sources and Sinks, such as solar photovoltaic 
• Sensors

These things respond to commands and generally act as a participant on a local basis, such as in a DC Microgrid and on a more global basis as in the smart grid Reg.-on or Reg.-off and spin reserve commands. The objective of this modeling, if not the internet of things, is to achieve combinatorial interoperability. I will save the definition of this for the end.

(Business) Event:  In information technology, a business event is an event that is meaningful for conducting commercial, industrial, and governmental or trade activities. In the context of the use case, the events we want to detail are those that start, end or modify the thing in our use case. In other words, what happened to stimulate your use case? Sensors and groups of sensors could affect or signal local and global processes.

Business Event Factors:

• Event Description: Events should be described by what takes place and where. For instance a cloud passing over a solar panel might be an event that affects solar technology. A brownout might signal the start of a smart grid scenario.
• Detection: How can we tell that the event has occurred? What sensors, user request  and information provide this? Normally this is a decision or a group of business rules.
• Control: Does the event stop, start or interrupt the process? What process is affected by the event?
• Process Controlled: What product-related functionality or processes are controlled by this event?
  Related or Connected Process:  Our ‘things’ use case should start with an appliance’s functions or process, as it responds to events (or sensors). In IT a process is an event-controlled flow of coordinated activities that accomplishes a goal. What are the core processes that accomplish the use case for the ‘thing’? In technology, there may be many sub-processes needed to complete the core business process.

Process Factors:

• Appliance, Business Model or Business Area: Processes support a product’s business model. A process accomplishes a goal in one or more business areas. What capability or features of the system are utilized in the use case?
• Activities: What are activities that comprise the process? For things, appliances or energy sources, what components within the product will carry out the directives of the use case?  Only components or the types of components affected by use case analysis should be gathered. Since this is a high-level use case, there should be relatively few.
• Participants: Who participated in the activities in part of the process (sub-process)? This can include products such as solar panels and boilers. It can also include sensors.

Business Process Technical Factors
Process Data: What are the data attributes within the message flow process? What documents and artifacts should be included?

• Flow Control: What are the decision points of the process?
• Related systems. What systems must provide data to the system?

Decisions and Business Rules:  A decision is a judgment about a business or operational concept. There are two major decisions in most use cases: How is the event recognized? Next, for the end-user or other stakeholder, how should the appliance, energy source or local process decide  to respond to the events?
Decisions can be controlled by users as in an automated sensor control. A business rules is a constraint or policy that guides the behavior of the business. Business rules mediate the information in the process flows.
Decision Factors:

• Decision: What are the decisions that guide the use case? The decision is a lead-in for the formal statement of the rule.
• Business Terms: What are the terms or vocabulary of the business rules? (In this study, business terms are left for Business Rules Approach problems)
• Stakeholder: Who are the stewards for the business rules? Who controls the policy, constraint or guideline?
• Control: What is the control motivation for this business rule? What is the consequence for the reversal?
• Measure: How do we measure the outcome of the rule, both (if needed)?

Decision Technical Factors:

• Formal Rule: the decision or rule statement in an If- Then-Else form.
• Classify: the type, the division, the sort. A concise business rule will start (or end) by filtering what it is deciding upon.
• Calculate: compute formulas, look up data and statistics, and transform and assign values. The rule transforms input values into useful data.
• Compare: the comparison to the redline. The redline is a key value that must be reached, or not exceeded, or within a specified range.
• Control: what is true or valid, correct or mistaken, and the data and messages that go with them. Control can include a transformation of data.

Combinatorial Interoperability

Interoperability is the capability of diverse systems and organizations to work together (inter-operate). The term is often used in a technical systems engineering sense, or alternatively in a broad sense, taking into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system to system performance.

In the ‘things’ world, interoperable appliances, systems and energy sources can recognize each other and cooperate to meet the needs of the owner. For instance a temperature sensor on one device might control another. The network should sense when the sensor is available and the other devices should interoperate with these.

Certainly, the Event, Process, Decision metaphors apply to developing use cases for the internet of things. 

Use Cases for the Internet of Things

A use case is a description of steps or actions between users, (participants, products) and core software systems which leads the user towards something useful.  In our practice of business process modeling, particularly at Bosch, I have been encountering many ‘Internet of things’ use cases. These ‘things’ or products are process participants, as opposed to simple data feeds or event sources. They are responsible for activities. They send and respond to signals.

Use Cases for the Internet of Things

In the new world of process modeling for the “things world”, product features respond (process) to their environment (events) according to the needs and desires of their owners (decisions and rules). In addition, process activities are continuously updated and communicate in a globally connected environment. This is the nature of the internet of things or the ‘things world’. Some, aspects of the process, events and decisions will be controlled by the end-user. Other aspects are controlled by the things, outside agents, products or by others, such as weather or an electrical utility (smart grids).
The goal of BPMN and other visual environments, such as Visual Rules is to empower the stake-holders, such as product experts, to control their area of concern, without writing computer code. End-users can configure the actions in the use case, according to their needs.  This is referred to as the ‘user creating the application’. In the ‘things world’, a wide range of products that will interact in unanticipated ways. Cameras, household appliances, security sensors and many other things will interact. The end user will probably not use BPMN for this; however, they will want to change the sequence of tasks and the nature of responses to events.

BPMN in the Things World

The visual approach, including BPMN, is a common way to model process and rules, and now even events.  What can be difficult to relate is how to build a use case that matches ‘things’ requirements with a list of objectives for events, processes and decisions. What is needed is a context for arranging the vision into a form that can be incorporated into products.
The outcome should be to define services that support product features, events and decisions that carry out the use case objectives. This is the beginning of an iterative process, a starting point for building a core set of services that support a more integrated portfolio of capabilities.
There are many native benefits to the combined Process/Event/Rules approach that enhance competitiveness. The result should be a portfolio of agile products and process features that increase agile responses to customer requirements, economic or competitive challenges. Over time companies, by adopting the strategy, will build an agile core for managing a collection of common events/process/decisions and information structures that support the objectives of the business. This is the clearest path to the ‘internet’ of things.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the ‘things world’ is not just sensors, appliances and cameras connected to the internet. This connectivity will spawn new business models and new opportunities.  To wit, there are underpinnings, including vocabulary, product/services, organizations, and personnel and training data structures that are critical to every process, and therefore every ‘internet of things’ initiative.

Tom Debevoise