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Business Process Management with JBoss jBPM
Business Process Management with JBoss jBPM

Business Process Management with JBoss jBPM: Find out how to improve business processes with jBPM, and discover how you can begin making a transformative impact as a business analyst in your organization

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Business Process Management with JBoss jBPM

Chapter 2. Understanding the target process

The last chapter has given us a bit of background to business process management and it is now time for us to dive right in and get our project up and running. The project outline described in this book is intended to deliver a BPM system that is fully functional and usable in the live environment, although there will be many opportunities left for further development of the end product. The point of our project is to prove that the BPM concept can deliver value to our organization, so that management will agree to further investment and proper development of the system.

Given that our objective is of a limited nature, it makes sense for our project to deliver as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, in our haste we should not sacrifice proper project documentation and methodology, for without an audit trail, the concept will remain unproven. While this book isn't about project management methodology, we will at least describe how to initiate the...

Setting up the project


It is very tempting at the outset of an exciting new project to just jump in straight away and start the analysis work, or even just start building. It is very worthwhile, however, to spend some time setting up the project properly first, so that everyone involved in the project understands:

  • Exactly what we plan to do

  • Why we are doing it

  • How we plan to get there

  • Who will do what

  • When we are planning to do it

A cliché that is often bandied around on technology projects is the axiom "People, process, and technology". Typically, an IT project is good at addressing the process and technology bits, but all too often, the people element gets left behind as an afterthought for training and the nebulous area of "change management". The people element of the project needs to be considered at the very beginning, and concrete actions taken throughout to ensure everyone is buying into the project.

The very first thing that we can do to ensure we are taking our people with us, is set...

Analyze the process


We must now put our project team to work. The analysis phase of our project will roughly follow the five step process made famous by Dr Michael Hammer, that is to say:

  • Identify and understand processes

  • Share processes

  • Measure and reward against process performance

  • Improve processes where necessary

  • Appoint a process owner

As you can see, we have already made a start on some of these activities, but the analysis phase will really deepen our understanding of the business processes. The key to success will be in communicating the "As Is" situation with crystal clarity to all the stakeholders, so that everyone has the same shared understanding. Only then will we be able to design the "To Be". The first step on this road is to very simply map out the sequence of activities.

Map the workflow

Mapping out the workflow as a flowchart model is a fantastic participatory exercise that works best in a workshop environment. The technique is low tech but extremely effective: we stick big sheets...

Summary


This has been a whistle-stop tour of process analysis and improvement techniques. We have seen all the major tools in the process analyst's kit bag, with a view to creating a deep understanding of the process we are seeking to systematize in our BPMS.

There is much more to this than we can squeeze in one chapter, and there are plenty of sources for further information. For more detail and practical examples read the incomparable Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Application Development by Alec Sharp and Patrick McDermott (ISBN 978-1-58053-021-7), or The Reengineering Revolution by Michael Hammer (ISBN 978-0-88730-736-2).

In this chapter, we have considered the following deliverables of this phase of our BPM project, and we have seen worked examples of each where it has been appropriate:

  • Project initiation document

  • As Is:

    • Flowchart

    • Activity flow diagram

    • RACI matrix

    • Process metrics analysis

  • To Be:

    • Activity flow diagram

    • RACI matrix

    • Implementation plan

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Key benefits

  • Develop business process models for implementation in a business process management system.
  • Map your business processes in an efficient, standards-friendly way
  • Use the jBPM toolset to work with business process maps, create a customizable user interface for users to interact with the process, collect process execution data, and integrate with existing systems.
  • Use the SeeWhy business intelligence toolset as a Business Activity Monitoring solution, to analyze process execution data, provide real-time alerts regarding the operation of the process, and for ongoing process improvement
  • Set up business rules, assign tasks, work with process variables, automate activities and decisions.

Description

JBoss jBPM is a free, open-source, business process management solution. It enables users to create business processes that coordinate people, applications, and services. A business process is a sequence of activities triggered by a certain input that results in a valuable output. Business Process Management is about analyzing those activities in a structured way and eventually supporting their execution with a workflow application. This allows for the following results: Better management visibility of their business: improved decision making Low cost of inputs: de-skilled labor requirements, less waste, standardized components Better outputs: consistent quality, more customer satisfaction Businesses have always tried to manage their processes, but software such as jBPM brings the methodology and management theory to practical life. JBoss jBPM offers the following key features: Graphical process definition Flexibility to integrate code into the graphical process definition A customizable web-based workflow application that runs the process you’ve defined Easy programming model to extend the graphical process definition A process-oriented programming model (jPDL) that blends the best of process definition languages and Java. Easy to integrate with other systems through the JBoss middleware suite.

Who is this book for?

This book takes a practical approach, with step-by-step instructions for business process management, model creation, and implementation. The book uses a typical BPM project lifecycle case study to explore and explain the process in a realistic situation. This is a book for Business Analysts (BAs) who need to develop a process model for implementation in a business process management system. Developers looking at the JBoss jBPM toolset will also find it a useful introduction to the key concepts. This book is a full toolkit for someone who wants to implement BPM in the right way. This toolkit is particularly aimed at Business Analysts, although Project Managers, IT managers, developers, and even business people can expect to find useful tools and techniques in here. We will present the project framework, analysis techniques and templates, BPM technology and example deliverables that you need to successfully bring a BPM solution into your organization.

What you will learn

  • This book will teach business analysts:
  • What a business process is and why you would want to manage it
  • How to map your business process
  • Eliminating waste from the process
  • How to define roles and responsibilities within the process
  • Taking your process map into the jBPM toolset
  • Activities/States and decision points
  • How to work with process variables
  • Automating activities/decisions where possible
  • Setting up business rules: task assignment
  • Business Activity Monitoring: analyzing process execution data, conducting ongoing process improvement
  • The book covers tasks that are common to all BPM implementations, but focuses on implementation in the popular and free jBPM.
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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Jul 30, 2007
Length: 220 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781847192363
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Length: 220 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781847192363
Category :
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

7 Chapters
Introduction Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Understanding the target process Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Develop the process in JBoss jBPM Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
The Prototype user interface Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Iterate the prototype Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Proof-of-concept to implementation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Ongoing process improvement Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Top Reviews
Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon Empty star icon 3.3
(13 Ratings)
5 star 30.8%
4 star 23.1%
3 star 15.4%
2 star 7.7%
1 star 23.1%
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Top Reviews

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Will Gilbert Aug 20, 2007
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Have been playing with workflow for the past six months but haven't been able to move past the simple three node examples in the jBPM download. Got this book on a Friday and finished it by Sunday, this alone is a testament to how easy it is to read and understand. By Monday evening I had the book's complex workflow example running and was, for the first time, starting to grasp workflow principles in general, and the jBPM framework in particular. By the end of week I was taking this example apart, tweaking it, and making it better. Thanks Matt, I'm finally out of the starting gate.This book is targeted at project managers and does a great job of laying out requirements gathering and project team assembly. As a software developer, project management is a little out of my area of experience, however I learned a lot about what I could do to create fast prototypes for proof of concept demos.If you want to learn work flow the fast way, this book is great. And if you're a developer wanting to get your boss interested in workflow, the first chapter is a great overview for non-technical types.I hope I see here the seeds of a companion volume or a "How to" cookbook targeted for developers. Matt Cumberlidge really knows how to write and he also creates great, real world, examples, which developers can sink their teeth into.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
D Mar 20, 2008
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is described as A Practical Guide for Business Analysts and is intended for Business Analysts who are not familiar with, or who are new to the JBoss jBPM system.The book takes an iterative approach to Business Process Management (BPM) and starts by describing why we might need BPM and what its benefits to an organization might be. The first chapter of the book continues to describe some scenarios where BPM is expected to be beneficial to a company (for example "Processes are carried out in disparate teams" and where BPM would not be used (for example where it would impose a disproportionate burden on a small business). Chapter 1 ends by introducing a suggested six-phase project lifecycle, which is described within the remaining chapters in the book.The first stage of implementing BPM describes how to set up a BPM project and includes details on Project Initiation Documents, scoping the process, process analysis and scoping out the process workflow. Sample activity diagrams and project documentation (e.g. RACI matrices) are provided as examples.After describing the business process, the book details how to model the process using JBoss jBPM including details of how to install the jBPM engine, the JBoss application Server and the jBPM designer. The jBPM designer is an Eclipse plugin, so some readers of the book may already be familiar with this application. It should be stated however that the target audience for this book is not software developers, but Business Analysts (although there are sections within the book on how to customise jBPM processes using Java code). This section on implementing a process using JBoss jBPM is one of the larger chapters in the book and covers details of jPDL (Process Definition Language). As with the rest of the book, this is described in a clear and easy to understand tutorial approach that should provide the readers with sufficient information to build their own processes after completing the book.In order to deploy and test the business process on JBoss jBPM, a user interface is required which is the subject of the next chapter in the book. This chapter described how web based user interfaces can be automatically generated from within the process editor and then customised by a business analyst. The web based user interfaces are defined using Java Server Faces (JSF) with the Facelets view technology. The book does not go into great depth about either of these technologies, rather it assumes the Business Analyst will be making minor modifications to these pages.The sample process within the book is developed and deployed onto a standalone JBoss workstation. Details are provided however on how to deploy the project onto a production server using a production ready database.Sometimes within a business process it is necessary to invoke custom actions that can be developed using Java code. A brief description is provided showing how to develop a custom action to extract data from a process and insert it into a separate database. This is provided as an overview of how custom actions can be developed, however the focus of the book is on developing and deploying business processes in an iterative manner rather than on in depth analysis of the Java code required to develop custom actions.Finally the book concludes with details of how process monitoring can be achieved using the SeeWhy business intelligence platform.This book follows a tutorial style approach describing an iterative procedure for developing BPM applications deployed to the JBoss jBPM engine. The book takes the reader through the whole project lifecycle, from identifying target processes, building prototypes and finally getting project sign-off. The style of the book is easy to read whilst still remaining informative. This book is recommended for Business Analysts using or looking to use the JBoss jBPM suite of tools
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Christopher M. Logan May 02, 2014
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
The book helps you to visualize any project. Im currently utilizing this book even with the latest version of the software. The concepts can be re-applied nicely.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Victor A May 28, 2008
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This book is a easy-to-read, nice, brief introduction to BPM and BPMS using jBPM tool.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Dan McKinnon Aug 28, 2007
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
'Business Process Management with JBoss jBPM' by Matt Cumberlidge is a book targeted at business analysts and product managers who are looking to streamline the process of managing software development. This book spans over 200 pages and content is laid out over 7 chapters. From laying out how jBPM is to be used to setting up your first process management workflow to learning how to get the most out of this great tool, this book is perfect for all relevant industry people who are looking to improve efficiency and results.I usually look for brevity in books but I felt that another 50 pages or so probably would have made for a better end result. This book does exactly what it says it is going to do and does it well, but I felt that it could have had a little more content and that is why I didn't give this a 5th star.Good book for going from prototype to end result for all people in the field and a book I recommend picking up.**** RECOMMENDED
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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