Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Experiences of Using Different Communication Styles in
Business Process Support Systems with the Shared
Spaces Architecture
Ilia Bider
1,2
, Paul Johannesson
2
, and Rainer Schmidt
3
1
IbisSoft ab/SU, Sweden
ilia@ibissoft.se
2
SU, Sweden
pajo@dsv.su.se
3
HTW-Aalen, Germany
Rainer.Schmidt@htw-aalen.de
Abstract.
Though the concept of shared spaces had been known for quite a
while, it did not become popular until the arrival of the internet and social
software. Via this way, the concept has penetrated other IT-areas, including the
area of Business Process Management, which brings about the needs of
investigating the usage of shared spaces in connection to Business Process
Support (BPS). The first part of this experience report describes the authors'
experience of building, introducing in the operational practice, and using BPS
systems based on the shared spaces architecture. It presents three examples of
applications aimed at supporting collaboration/communication in the frame of
business process instances. These systems use three different mechanisms
for arranging communication/collaboration. The first system is based on
collaborative planning; the second one is based on the specialized structure of
the shared spaces, and the third one on changes in the status of the processes.
The second part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of the examples from the
first part in order to create a preliminary taxonomy of communication styles in
systems with shared spaces architecture. For this end, the authors identified
three binary parameters that characterize the way invitations to visit a shared
space are issued. These parameters can be used for analyzing communication
capabilities of BPS systems, as well as other types of computer systems, with
the shared spaces architecture.
Keywords:
business process, groupware, communication, shared space.
1 Introduction
The concept of shared spaces is well known [1][2] and has become widely used in the
Internet era in connection with advances of social software. A blog, personal journal,
and even a photo album are all examples of shared spaces, as they allow sharing
information.
Now, shared spaces begin to penetrate the business world as a new generation of
workers, brought up with computers, arrives to the labor market. Most of them are
