Enhancing feasibility of human-driven processes by transforming process models to process checklists

Abstract

In traditional approaches business processes are executed on top of IT-based Workflow-Management Systems (WfMS). The key benefits of the application of a WfMS are task coordination, step-by-step guidance through process execution and traceability supporting compliance issues. However, when dealing with human-driven workflows, conventional WfMS turn out to be too restrictive. Especially, the only way to handle exceptions is to bypass the system. If users are forced to bypass WfMS frequently, the system is more a liability than an asset. In order to diminish the dependency from IT-based process management systems, we propose an alternative way of supporting workflow execution that is especially suitable for human-driven processes. We introduce the socalled process checklist representation of process models where processes are described as a paper-based step-by-step instruction handbook. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014.