How to Make Business Processes “Socialize”?

Abstract

This paper presents an approach that builds upon social computing principles to make business processes “socialize”. First the approach identifies the main components of a business process that are task, person, and machine. A task is a work unit that forms with other tasks a business process and that a person and/or machine execute. Afterwards the approach enriches a business process with details captured from the (execution and social) relations that connect tasks together, persons together, and machines together. While execution relations are widely reported in the literature, there is a growing interest in studying the role of social relations in business processes. The approach uses social relations to build configuration network of tasks, social network of persons, and support network of machines. These networks capture the ongoing interactions that arise when business processes are executed. A system illustrating how these networks are developed is also demonstrated in the paper.