Comprehensive Business Process Management through Observation and Navigation

Most real-world business processes involve a combination of both well-defined and previously modelled as well as unforeseen and therefor unmodelled scenarios. The goal of comprehensive process management should be to cover all actually performed processes by accurate models so that they may be fully supported by IT systems. Unmodelled processes can be observed by the Process Observation system which generates models reflecting the recorded behaviour. Modelled processes may be of different natures: while so-called “automation” processes involve little human participation and mainly orchestrate services and applications, so-called “knowledge-intensive” processes are based on human expert participation. Both types of models may be enacted by the Process Navigation system. This contribution introduces the integration of both systems which leads to an approach for supporting the full range from unmodelled processes to both automation and knowledge-intensive processes as well as the transition from unmodelled to modelled processes.