Mal-processes: Explicitly Modelling the Deviant

摘要

Definitions of business processes for the most part suggest that they are a set of interrelated activities with the goal of accomplishing a given task to provide value to the customer of the process. This positive orientation has been reflected in business process modelling methodologies, tools, techniques and even in the reference models and implementation approaches suggested by vendors and implementation partners. Research and industry does not explicitly consider the negative business process scenarios that could result in the accomplishment of undesirable outcomes to the customer and/or owner of the process. In this paper we first motivate the need for explicit consideration of such undesirable processes. We define such processes as mal-processes and proceed to identify some of the key causes of mal-processes in organisational contexts. This discussion is motivated through the identification of potential mal-processes and means through which we could prevent them. We propose extensions to existing business process modelling conventions (ARIS) that would enable us to model mal-processes. The interplay between best practice processes as defined by reference models (e.g. SAP Reference Model) and mal-processes as well as their impact on the implementation of Enterprise Systems (e.g. SAP, Oracle) is discussed in some detail. We conclude the paper by identifying the application and benefits that could accrue from the explicit identification of mal-processes.