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Table 1. Cyclic change cycles
Deming
Six Sigma
Capability Maturity
Process Reengineering Life Cycle
Plan
Define
Initial
Envision
Do
Measure
Reusable
Initiate
Check
Analyze
Defined
Diagnose
Act
Improve
Managed
Redesign
Control
Optimized
Reconstruct
Monitor
Engineering approach, while the fourth section
defines the support required for the design and
deployment of collaboration processes according
to the Collaboration Engineering approach. The
chapter ends with conclusions and recommenda-
tions for future research.
attributes of the activities, the process flow and the
roles, routines, objects, decisions, etc. involved.
Patterns in such system are used mostly to pro-
vide templates for the documentation of these
elements and the different types of combinations
that are used to sequence the process such as the
AND-join pattern for synchronization in work
flow (Aalst et al., 2003; Castano, Antonellis, &
Melchiori, 1999) or the decision node in process
flow models.
Process design as any other design effort has
similar phases as a process for decision making,
and problem solving (Ackoff, 1978; Checkland,
1981; Couger, 1995; Mitroff, Betz, Pondly, &
Sagasty, 1974; Simon, 1973; Sol, 1982). It consists
of an analysis of the current situation, possibly
involving a decision about the need for a new ap-
proach or change. Next, through decomposition
an initial sequence of steps is created. Alterna-
tive solutions to change and support the process
are then identified and evaluated to eventually
choose a sequence of steps and supporting tools
that are validated (pilot, test case) to be ultimately
implemented. As discussed modern approaches
for process change such as the Business Process
Reengineering Lifecycle (Guha, Kettinger, &
Teng, 1993), the Deming cycle (Deming, 2000),
the Capability Maturity Model (Paulk, Weber,
Curtis, & Chrissis, 1995) and Six Sigma (Snee,
2004) are more incremental and cyclic (see table
1), working to establish and document the cur-
rent process based on performance measurement
and lessons learned to continuously improve and
2. bACkground:
ProCess design
Process design has been studied in a variety of
closely related domains, in particular Business Pro-
cess Change (Grover & Kettinger, 1995), Business
Process Reengineering (O'Neill & Sohal, 1999),
and workflow management (Aalst et al., 2003).
Designs of processes and workflows in essence
describe a sequence of tasks or steps for which
actors, roles or agents are defined and for which
technology support, objects, or applications are
used. In workflow management there is a large
role for “flow of execution control” decisions or
choices that determine when the next step in the
sequence is activated (Aalst et al., 2003). The same
concepts are also used in modeling languages with
a process perspective such as Data Flow models,
IDEF0 (Mayer, 1990), and SADT models (Marca
& McGowan, 1987).
To support process design, process modeling
languages are supported with software tools that
enable the user to drag and drop blocks represent-
ing activities and arrows representing process
flow into a diagram and to specify a variety of
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