Live-Representation Process Management

We present the live-representation approach for managing and working in complex, dynamic business processes. In this approach, aspects of business-process modeling, project planning, project management, resource scheduling, and process automation, execution, and reporting are integrated into an on-line representation of planned and executing processes. This representation provides a real-time view of past, present, and anticipated process activities and resourcing. Changes in the process are immediately reflected in the live representation, so that, at any point in time, the latest information about process status and downstream expectations is available. Managers can directly manipulate the live representation to change process structure and execution. These changes are then quickly propagated throughout the environment, keeping managers and process participants in sync with process changes. In this paper, we describe the technical and humanistic issues associated with the live-representation approach and summarize experiences gained in developing a commercial implementation that was used with design processes in the automotive and aerospace industries. Economic pressures are requiring businesses and organizations to work faster and with fewer resources. Managing complex business processes has always been difficult. However, the increased interaction among processes (through shared resources and results) and increased concurrency of activities within processes (to complete processes sooner) now leave process managers1 with less time to make decisions and expand the implications and scope of those decisions significantly. Dynamic business processes present substantial problems for today’s process managers who must routinely investigate and evaluate process status, handle exceptions and resource problems, worry about potential downstream issues, and change the process structure and details accordingly. For example, key resources may need to be reassigned or may become unavailable, information and results may not arrive when expected, tasks may take more (or less) time than expected, the results may be surprising and suggest other activities, and so on. Due to process dynamics and uncertainty, these events cannot be anticipated nor can contingencies be established for them beforehand. Therefore, a significant contributor to the effectiveness of business-process execution is the We use “process managers” to denote individuals who make management decisions associated with the execution of dynamic business processes. Such individuals need not have an explicit management role in their organization. ability of managers to make appropriate and timely process assessment, guidance, and adjustment decisions during process execution. In this paper, we describe a novel knowledge-based decision support approach that was applied to automotive and aerospace design processes. Automotive and aerospace design involves dynamic processes that use limited and highly expensive physical and personnel resources and require the careful coordination of diverse organizational units. Although these design processes are being scrutinized, standardized, and documented, they are highly dynamic by nature and require intelligent, timely, and flexible management to meet the competitive pressures to produce better designs in shorter time using fewer resources. 1 Needed: Better Decision Support A lack of accurate, accessible, and timely information and analysis remains at the root of the management problem. Off-line reporting and analysis tools do not operate at the time scales and level of detail required to identify and address process problems until after they have occurred—if they are identified at all. Reports are commonplace of analysts working on design candidates that had long been eliminated, of design shortcuts taken to meet deadlines that are ICEIS 2003 Corkill, Rubinstein, Lander, & Lesser Live-Representation Process Management no longer relevant, and of unforeseen delays while awaiting critical test facilities or personnel resources. Without knowing what is happening and why and what is likely to happen in the future, process managers are forced to rely on intuition and luck in making decisions. Detecting and responding to process dynamics is onerous for managers. Managers need help with: • keeping everyone that is involved in a process informed of their anticipated tasks and estimated start and due times • automatically adapting schedules when the execution of tasks differs from expectations • redesigning and rescheduling processes as new information becomes available • alerting managers to potential problems, such as the unavailability of resources, that will cause delays • notifying managers of scheduled times that violate deadlines What is needed is an integration of aspects of business-process modeling, project planning, project management, resource scheduling, and process automation, execution, and reporting into a “live” decision-support environment that presents managers and participants with an accurate, on-line view of process status and downstream expectations. 2 Live-Representation Approach Information technologies have addressed pieces of the process-management problem, but they have not attacked it head on. For example, software technologies have been developed that assist process participants in performing individual tasks, both individually and collaboratively. Many formerly manual tasks have been automated, and slow and expensive exchanges between tasks have been eliminated by using integration technologies. Software tools have also been developed to assist process managers in planning, executing, monitoring, measuring, and documenting process and organizational activities but, despite efforts to make these many technologies interoperate, these efforts have not significantly improved the way that dynamic processes are managed. In the live-representation approach, processes are not designed on paper, modeled and simulated off line, and eventually analyzed and reported on long after the work is done. Instead, process design and management activities are performed in conjunction with process execution, all utilizing an on-line, executing representation of processes, plans, participants, and resources. The live-representation approach addresses the reality of dynamic process management by facilitating continual proactive process guidance and adjustment. The approach presents a significant advantage over reactive methods that limit effective interventions. In essence, the live-representation approach provides a knowledge-intensive, proactive, highly responsive, and flexible environment that supports dynamic-process management decisions. This environment provides an up-to-date view of process activities and the current best estimate of downstream activities and potential problems. It assists managers in coordinating multiple processes and shared resources and ensures responsive execution of management decisions. The objective is to provide the support needed to keep process-management activities ahead of the rate of change in the processes. The live-representation approach also addresses the following goals: • improve process coherence by keeping participants and managers informed of the current state and downstream expectations of processes • enable proactive response to process and resource problems before they occur by providing a clear picture of what the processes will do in the future without intervention • push appropriate information to participants when it is needed • allow customization of individual activities based on process context • support resource allocations among processes • support cross-organizational collaboration processes via inter-organizational process linking and resource allocation strategies Required Capabilities The the following five capabilities are required in the live-representation approach: 1. Complete process representation—The approach begins with a knowledge-intensive definition of the dynamic process, with sufficient detail to allow automated execution and to make reasonable expectations of downstream activities. 2. Direct execution—The process definition is instantiated and executed for each process so that the representation matches exactly what is happening as the process is executed. Direct execution is important for validation of the process representation and to ensure that on-the-fly modifications to the representation will be reflected in the executing process. 3. Integrated downstream forecasting—Dynamic scheduling of downstream activities and resources