A Role-Based Approach To Business Process Management

Business Process Management (BPM) creates a new layer in IT architecture. Older integration technologies act as middleware (they sit below the applications that they connect) but BPM sits above them. Since a BPM system integrates and organises IT assets from the users' point of view, its basic capabilities should cater naturally for human collaboration. This requires three fundamental capabilities: 1. Flexible process topology 2. Event-driven and declarative activity management 3. A collaborative perspective We consider how the XML standards proposed for BPM measure up against these criteria, and hence to what degree they support collaboration. We conclude that while BPML and BPEL4WS provide the required flexibility, none of them deliver the other 2 capabilities. We then present an alternative formal system for BPM, based on Role Activity Theory, an established formal framework for describing human and organizational collaboration. This system is defined by the XML language Playwright, and supported by the BPM engine RADRunner.