Si comme moi vous n

1. Your process execution vendor *doesn’t* have a great modeller.

2. You want to include manual tasks as part of your model.

3. You are modelling for multiple execution engines that don’t interact, and don’t want your business analysts to have to learn a new tool for each of them.

I don’t know enough about ARIS to comment on their commitment to standards, but I would have to say that I agree somewhat with your view after a few conversations with them about what they’re doing — check out the post on my interview with Trevor Naidoo <a href=”http://www.column2.com/2007/02/processworld-day-1-briefing-with-trevor-naidoo-of-ids-scheer/” rel=”nofollow”>here</a>.

Professor Scheer is wily, that’s for sure. He has based his argument on a false premise: that execution-based BPMSs _only_ execute. The fact is: most of us execution vendors model - and we do it quite well. In fact, we typically do it in a more standards-based way, and in a more business-friendly way than the old-line modeling vendors. So let’s dive in a bit deeper.

Let’s start with common ground. Here’s something that we can all (most of us anyway: you, Lombardi and IDS Scheer, for example) can agree on: the method(s) of execution are irrelevant if there is fidelity in the execution to the modeled process.

But Professor Scheer would stop there. We don’t. We think there’s more to being a BPM company than simply drawing a picture, or executing it. Lombardi, and others involved in the standards process, strive for more. We want to see not only execution of the models, but also richness and portability of the models. This isn’t altruistic. We want to see open standards because there are many, many uses of these models well beyond simple documentation, well beyond simple execution - and well beyond what we individually are capable of delivering to the market. We at Lombardi strive for nothing less than the model-driven enterprise. To achieve this will take an entire ecosystem of tooling around the models. Lombardi will provide some. SAP, Cognos, Rational, who knows? There is more to do here than any one company can “own.”

If these markets open up, then more people model, more people begin transforming their businesses by using the “process prism,” and we all profit.

On the other end of the scale lies IDS Scheer, and they are not alone among modeling vendors. They prefer to protect their turf by keeping their advanced model formats proprietary. They want to compete based on lock-in, as opposed to usefulness. (Yes, they “export” to a couple of formats, but not their advanced capabilities, and they are not actively working to make these advanced capabilities open… just try exporting that process, changing it in some other tool, and then importing the changed version…).

So count us as one execution vendor who is competing quite well in the modeling space, and also pursuing open, execution-independent standards in that space, so that all business process maps and models can be freely interchanged for purposes of execution, simulation, optimization, organization, and any other use than some enterprising member of the BPM ecosystem can dream up (and implement).

(Here’s a plug for OMG: the Business Process Definition Metamodel is the most advanced representation of business process definitions I’ve seen… it is up for adoption at the March OMG meeting in San Diego… I’d encourage everyone interested in business modeling to learn about this specification and then press the vendor community to embrace it… it provides a rich execution-independent serialization format for existing BPMN, plus it is the platform for the many advanced process capabilities needed for businesses to become truly model-driven).

Cheers,
Phil