Extending BPM(N) to Support Face-to-Virtual (F2V) Process Modeling

Abstract

In this paper, we present research on CoPI4P (Community of Practice & Interest for Purpose) communities that consist of knowledge and creative workers in domains such as education, environmentalism, inter-disciplinary research, engaged art, and practice F2V (face-to-virtual) processes, i.e. processes that consist of both face-toface and virtual (online) activities. Standards and methods for modeling business processes have successfully solved various crucial problems, such as providing boundary objects (or a common language) between business analysts, domain experts, process performers and business solutions developers. Performers can execute business processes with standards that support the execution of such processes. However, for CoPI4P communities, BPM standards 1) require additional domain specialization and 2) are either too imperative, or fail to provide enough guidance. This paper identifies these challenges and provides partial solutions applicable to modeling and supporting CoPI4P communities and the corresponding F2V business processes. In addition, results of focus groups interviews and surveys are provided that shed light, notably, on the way CoPI4P communities have been impacted by COVID-19 and how they have coped with digital disruptions to their working models. Our contribution to business processes management lies in researching and identifying the peculiarities of such communities and their workflows, followed by interventions in the BPM, and particularly the BPMN, domain. We then propose a toolset of BPMN extensions required to match the observed F2V workflows and thus to digitalize CoPI4P business models. In this context, we introduce the notion of sub-process palettes as a means to reduce the rigidity, and introduce personalization, of processes.