Social software for coordination of collaborative process activities

Abstract

Recently, a trend toward collaborative, on-line business process modeling can be observed that is also emphasized by several initiatives. Social software has the potential satisfying such a collaborative modeling. It provides tools to collaboratively exchange and share information resources among peers. Despite of the potential that social software has, it is insufficiently used as work resource (e.g., for help requests or partner search) due to a low integration of social software into the workflow management system. The aim of this paper is to exploit Wikis and social networks for the coordination of collaborative process activities. Wikis are suggested in order to reduce the model design phase. A technique will be introduced that allows visualizing a process model from Wiki pages. The connection of process activities with social networks supports browsing for suitable process collaborators. A coordination model will be introduced that governs the collaboration. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.