Defining Specialization for Process Models

Object-oriented analysis and design methods take full advantage of the object specialization hierarchy when it comes to modeling the objects in a system. When modeling system behavior, however, system analysts continue to rely on traditional tools such as state diagrams and dataflow diagrams. While such diagrams capture important aspects of the processes they model, they offer limited guidance as to the ways in which a process can be improved. In this paper we extend the notion of specialization to process representations and identify a set of transformations which, when applied to a process description, always result in specialization. We analyze specific examples in detail and demonstrate that such a use of specialization is not only theoretically possible, but shows promise as a method for categorizing and analyzing processes. This paper makes two contributions toward answering this question: first, it articulates a formal definition of process specialization which is compatible with object specialization but allows us to reason specifically in terms of process representations. Second, it develops the concept of the "specializing transformation" as a means for systematically generating and exploring process alternatives. We illustrate these results by applying them to two commonly used representations: the state diagram and the dataflow diagram. We identify a number of apparent inconsistencies between process specialization and the object specialization which is part of the object-oriented approach. We demonstrate that these apparent inconsistencies are superficial and that the approach we take is compatible with the traditional notion of specialization. Biography of Authors George Wyner received an A.B. in Mathematics from Harvard College in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Management from the Sloan School of Management at MIT in 2000. He is currently Assistant Professor of Information Systems at the Boston University School of Management. Wyner’s research centers on the modeling, classification, and analysis of organizational processes in pursuit of systematic technology-enabled organizational innovation. He is a long time member of the Process Handbook Project at MIT’s Center for Coordination Science, which is using ideas from coordination theory and object-oriented programming to build an on-line handbook of business processes constructed so as to facilitate the invention of new organizational forms. Jintae Lee received the B.A. in Mathematics from the Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL. in 1979, M.A. in Psychology from Harvard University, Cambridge, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1991. His research interest is in process representation and categorization. He is currently leading the effort in the Process Interchange Format project, whose aim is to define an interlingua for sharing process descriptions. Currently the project includes active members from major process research groups at several universities (MIT, Stanford, Univ. of Hawaii, Univ. of Toronto, Univ. of Edinburgh) and companies. He is also an active member of the MIT Process Handbook project. His previous research includes decision rationale management systems and their use in requirement engineering. Dr. Lee is a member of IEEE, AAAI, and ACM. Defining Specialization for Process Models