The influence of emerging metamodels and guidelines is quite significant. Every organization will need to adapt its business processes. Business process modeling tools are needed that enable an organization to model business processes on the basis of emgerging specifications.
There are a number of tools supporting business process modeling. However, they are generally based on some proprietary business process meta model. Consequently, these tools need to undergo significant redesign to make them suitable for the coming global business universe.
Yet, there are other convincing reasons for putting more emphasis on business process modeling. One of them is automated code generation. Specifications resulting from the work of the above mentioned projects and initiatives are based on semantically rich meta models. Business process modeling tools that have a public standards-based business process meta model at their core can drive application generation.
Is it just Business Process Modeling?
Business process modeling and workflow modeling go hand in hand. As a consequence, it is only reasonable to select a tool set that allows you to do both. There are tools that support business process modeling very well but are weak at workflow modeling. You also find tools that have their strengths in workflow modeling and weaknesses in business process modeling, although one would not expect this in the first instance. It is not easy to find a tool set that does well in both disciplines.
Yet, there is more to it. To use a business process and workflow modeling tool as a source for application generation, a modeler needs to be able to model use cases. He/she can capture pre- and post-conditions and describe use case scenarios. Workflow modeling and use case scenario descriptions are closely related and, thus, should be done in parallel. As use case scenarios have been developed, dialog maps can be created by using the modeling tool (dialog maps show navigation paths between user interfaces in a use case).
Workflows undergo analysis and simulation in the strive for optimization. Modifications to workflows are very likely. If a workflow is changed, the governing business process needs to be reviewed, which might trigger modification of the business process. Also use cases and use case scenarios are often affected from workflow modifications. If impact analysis is supported and consistency checking is applied, the potential for serious design flaws and omissions is greatly reduced.
Why is it important to do tool selection very carefully?
Business process modeling tools are highly sophisticated. Whereas it is no problem at all to identify a tool that is very strong in just one discipline, it is very hard to identify a tool set that allows you to cover business process modeling and workflow modeling and use case modeling. However, the potential for productivity enhancements is enormous if the whole ground can be covered and not just part of it. Consequently, the investment in a thorough tool selection is always beneficial.
What do I get?
The Business Process Modeling Tool Software Selection Criteria Schema provides you with a means to identify business process modeling tools that are suitable to your requirements. It helps to save a significant portion of valuable time, thus speeding up the selection process.
The Software Selection Criteria Schema comes as a Microsoft Word document. It makes use of the Word comments feature to convey additional criterion information. A 4-pages fragment of the Microsoft Word document is available for download.
Please note that the schema can be tailored and customized by editing. With more than 200 criteria the schema covers the whole business process life-cycle. Each criterion encompasses several attributes, such as requirement type, description, purpose statement, quality measure statement and annotation. You just delete criteria that are not relevant to your specific goals and requirements. On the other hand, of course, you can add additional selection criteria.
After editing, the criteria schema can be distributed among tool vendors, requesting them to provide information in the ‘realization’ column if and to what degree requirements are met. As a quality measure is specified for each criterion, it will be easy to perform a rating of products after vendors have responded. Alternatively, the criteria schema can be used for an internal product rating with minimum vendor involvement.
Additionally, an excerpt of our Software Selection Criteria Schema is also available as a PDF file for download. To view the PDF file you need Acrobat Reader (version 3 or higher). Please note, that it contains only a subset of information from the XML source document (only 4 columns have been printed in portrait format).
The downloadable files contain only fragments of the Business Process Modeling Tool Software Selection Criteria Schema. However, you can download the complete list of criteria groups and subgroups as a PDF file.
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