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Unraveling Unstructured Process Models

This talk explores the challenges and possibilities of structuring unstructured process models. It discusses the benefits of structured models and explores methods for analyzing, decomposing, and visualizing unstructured models. The speaker presents a novel approach using modular decomposition trees to create block-structured process models from ordering relations. The talk includes live demonstrations and interactive exercises.

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Unraveling Unstructured Process Models

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  1. Unraveling Unstructured Process Models Marlon Dumas University of Tartu, Estonia Joint work with Artem Polyvyanyy and Luciano García-Bañuelos Invited Talk, BPMN’2010 Workshop, Potsdam, 14 Oct. 2010

  2. Poll: Which desk do you prefer?

  3. Poll: Which model do you prefer?

  4. The Problem • Sometimes, structured is “preferable” • Easier to understand • Easier to analyze • Easier to automatically layout • Easier to abstract (zoom-out) • But not all models are structured – often for a good reason! • We know not all models can be structured… • Which ones can, which ones can’t?

  5. CTparallel = Max{T1, T2,…, TM} CT = T/(1-r) CT = p1T1+p2T2+…+pmTm= CT = T1+T2+…+ Tm Analysis of Structured Models Laguna & Marklund (2005): Business Process Modeling, Simulation and Design

  6. Automated Layout and Abstraction Wil van der Aalst et al., Process Mining Tutorial

  7. A Bit of History 1968 1969 1970s (and 80s)

  8. 20 years (and 200 papers) later… • Everything can be structured if you accept to break and continue • Everyone forgot to release their implementation (they were ashamed since it was full of GOTOs)

  9. 40 years (and 400 papers) later • We can structure any BPMN diagram, except: • “Incorrect” ones • Cycles with multiple exit points • Z-structures • Inclusive join gateways, complex gateways and other demons • Try it out: http://sep.cs.ut.ee/Main/bpstruct

  10. Corollary (if you care) • Any (sound) BPMN model can be transformed into an equivalent (readable) BPEL process definition • If BPEL had break/continue statements or we use boolean variables to simulate break/continue statememts • And the BPMN model does not have inclusive join gateways, complex gateways and other demons • And some other minor details not worth mentioning

  11. Behavioral Equivalence Weakly bisimilar Weakly bisimilar Fully concurrent bisimilar (FCB) ≈ ≈ ≈ Preserves the level of concurrency in a process model Sequential simulation of a process model Sequential simulation of a process model

  12. Starting Point – Process Structure Tree Johnson et al. (PLDI’1994), Vanhatalo et al. (BPM’2008)

  13. Taxonomy of Process Fragments • Trivials, polygons, and bonds are structured fragments • Rigids are “unstructured” 13

  14. Homogeneous XOR Rigid

  15. Homogeneous AND Rigid

  16. Block-structured version…

  17. Homogeneous AND Rigid that cannot be structured • Causal rules: • {A, B}  { C } • { B }  { D } • Overlap on the left-hand side of the rules

  18. Compare to this… • Causal relations • {A, B}  {C, D}

  19. Heterogeneous Acyclic Rigid

  20. Equivalent Structured Fragment

  21. The Key Ingredient: Unfoldings An unfolding is arepresentation of a net without “merge” points A complete prefix unfolding is a finite initial part of the unfolding that contains full informationabout the reachable states

  22. Ordering Relations A>C1 D2||C2 A#D2 B#A C2||D2 B>D2 • Two transitions of an occurrence net are in one of the following relations: • A and B are in causal relation (A>B), iff there exists a path from A to B • A and B are in conflict (A#B), iff there are two transitions t1, t2 that share an input place and there is a path from t1 to A and a path from t2 to B • A and B are in concurrency (A||B) relation iff A and B are neither in causal, nor in conflict relation

  23. FCB and Ordering Relations ~ ~ ~ = Two process models are FCB-equivalent … … if and only if, (complete prefix) unfoldings of both models expose same ordering relations 23

  24. Structuring Process Models Compute ordering relations of the (unstructured) process model Construct a block-structuredprocess model from ordering relations 24

  25. Ordering Relations Graph An ordering relations graph 25

  26. Modular Decomposition Tree (MDT) • A module is a set of edges with uniform structure • A linear (L) module is a total order on a set of nodes of a graph • A complete (C) module is a complete graph, or a clique • A primitive (P) module is neither trivial, nor linear, nor complete • The MDT is unique and can be computed in linear time The MDT

  27. Structuring Acyclic Process Models Let G be an ordering relations graph. The MDT of G has no primitive module, iff there exists a well-structured process model W such that G is the ordering relations graph of W. A primitive module

  28. Heterogeneous Cyclic Rigid

  29. For further details… Download and try: • http://sep.cs.ut.ee/Main/bpstruct • http://code.google.com/p/bpstruct/ Perspectives: • Analyze • Decompose (e.g. for distributed execution) • Refactor (extract duplicate fragments into subprocesses) • Visualize

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