Goal-Oriented Patterns for Business Processes

Organizations of today are becoming ever more focused on their business processes. This has resulted in an increasing interest in business process patterns, which can be used in order to understand where from one can adopt best practices, or how to build computer systems supporting business processes. However, to fully exploit patterns, they need to be defined in a structured, and even formal way. This paper proposes to explore the state-oriented approach for defining and formalizing patterns based on the notion of goal rather than the sequence of events/activities. 1. Motivation Most of the research and practice connected to business processes has one aim: to make business processes more cost-effective, which means reducing costs, time, increasing quality, etc. One of the proven approaches in this field is reengineering of the processes by using best practices, which can also include adoption of information systems used in these best practices. Borrowing a best practice from another organization cannot be done literally. We always need to abstract from the details in order to introduce the best practice in a new environment. What is more, before trying to take over somebody else’s best practice, we need to be sure that we are borrowing from the process that has the same nature that the one we want to substitute with the best practice. Abstracting from enough details to see the similarity of the phenomena that can look different at the first glance is often referred as to finding a common pattern. Patterns are used in many application fields from construction to software design. We believe that the idea of patterns can be useful for business process reengineering, especially for finding an appropriate best practice.ing from enough details to see the similarity of the phenomena that can look different at the first glance is often referred as to finding a common pattern. Patterns are used in many application fields from construction to software design. We believe that the idea of patterns can be useful for business process reengineering, especially for finding an appropriate best practice. The most important aspect to consider when looking for a better organized process is whether the goal of this process is the same as the one we want to substitute. Thus, the notion of goal is central for defining business-process patterns. In order to fully exploit patterns, they need to be defined in a structured, and even formal way. Below, we propose one approach to constructing such definitions.