A Framework for Modeling and Enabling Reuse of Best Practice IT Processes

 A Framework for Modeling and Enabling Reuse of Best Practice IT Processes Hamid R. Motahari-Nezhad, Sven Graupner, Claudio Bartolini HP Laboratories HPL-2010-107 Best Practice Processes, Process Modeling, Process Reuse, ITIL Best practices frameworks such as ITIL provide a generic description of best practice processes that are intended to be followed by people. These processes are refined into more concrete steps before they are actionable. The refinement often is specific to the organization where the process is adopted, as well as people who are enacting the process. Modeling best practice processes is challenging. On one hand, these processes need a high-level, abstract representation. Current process modeling languages are too rigid for modeling them. On the other hand, automation of the enactment of these processes among people requires formal models. In this paper, we propose a framework for modeling best practice processes at three levels: user-level, formal process model level and machine representation level to support the collaborative and ad-hoc refinement of process models as well as the automation of their enactments. We also propose an approach to learn from the past enactments of processes to enable reuse of organizational domain knowledge. External Posting Date: September 6, 2010 [Fulltext] Approved for External Publication Internal Posting Date: September 6, 2010 [Fulltext] To be published and presented at the 1st International Workshop on Reuse in Business Process Management (RBPM 2010), New York, USA, 13 September 2010 Copyright The 1st International Workshop on Reuse in Business Process Management (RBPM 2010) A Framework for Modeling and Enabling Reuse of Best Practice IT Processes Hamid R. Motahari-Nezhad, Sven Graupner, Claudio Bartolini Hewlett Packard Laboratories, Palo Alto, CA, United States {hamid.motahari, sven.graupner, claudio.bartolini}@hp.com Abstract. Best practices frameworks such as ITIL provide a generic description of best practice processes that are intended to be followed by people. These processes are refined into more concrete steps before they are actionable. The Best practices frameworks such as ITIL provide a generic description of best practice processes that are intended to be followed by people. These processes are refined into more concrete steps before they are actionable. The refinement often is specific to the organization where the process is adopted, as well as people who are enacting the process. Modeling best practice processes is challenging. On one hand, these processes need a high-level, abstract representation. Current process modeling languages are too rigid for modeling them. On the other hand, automation of the enactment of these processes among people requires formal models. In this paper, we propose a framework for modeling best practice processes at three levels: user-level, formal process model level and machine representation level to support the collaborative and ad-hoc refinement of process models as well as the automation of their enactments. We also propose an approach to learn from the past enactments of processes to enable reuse of organizational domain knowledge.