Condition-based process patterns for modeling of human processes in Knowledge-intensive Business Services

Abstract

The role of Knowledge-intensive Business Services (KIBS) has been enlarged in modern business environment. As well as the enterprises in any other kinds of industries, Business Process Management (BPM) can be a source of core competency for the enterprises in KIBS industry. However, most of the business processes in KIBS are human processes which are collaborative, innovative, and dynamic, which cannot be supported well by current BPM technologies. Human Interaction Management (HIM) has emerged as an alternative theory to deal with human processes in KIBS. Especially, the principle of 'supportive activity management' in HIM allows flexible process execution considering human characteristics. But, the condition-based process logic modeling to realize 'supportive activity management' may be too complicated work. This research suggests utilizing process patterns to address this problem, and defines condition-based process patterns divided into workflow patterns and interaction patterns. Using and combining process patterns facilitate modeling larger processes. (c) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.