Calling all Business Nerds: Universal Business Process Library

[David E Jones-3]

Why a Universal Business Process Library for OFBiz?

OFBiz is maturing. The framework is quite nice and has been pretty  
stable for years. Based on it we've built all sorts of business level  
functionality, creating an excellent set of generic base application  
artifacts that can be reused in higher level applications. More  
recently a number of people have started working on applications that  
are meant for one special purpose or another.

To help push these efforts forward, to help refine the base and  
special purpose applications in OFBiz, to create a starting point for  
analysis for customization efforts, and to help organize ourselves as  
a community I'd like to propose that we create a Universal Business  
Process Library.

The general idea is to create something like the "Universal Data  
Model" that has been the foundation of OFBiz for the last 7.5 years,  
and that will continue to provide the basic business information  
concepts that we all use on a daily basis. Instead of for data  
structures, this would be for business processes.

I've spent some time over the years, and others I work work have spent  
some time more recently, trying to find some sort of business process  
library we could base this on, but with no real luck. The closest  
things I've found are some semi-helpful books about business best  
practices, and documents created as a part of a number of business  
related specifications. I've started a page with those here:

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Resources+with+Information+about+General+Business+Processes

Still, these are not adequate for our needs, and even if they were I  
think we would want something that the community could get behind to  
maintain and expand, just like we do the code in OFBiz, and also tie  
these artifacts to actual things that exist in OFBiz. So, here we are,  
a few things I've thrown together to start assembling a Universal  
Business Process Library:

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Universal+Business+Process+Library+Index

This isn't meant to include everything that every business might do,  
but to be a library of general business activities that make up common  
processes that are shared by a wide variety of businesses. Some may of  
course be less commonly used, just as certain features in OFBiz are,  
but the general intent will be similar to that of OFBiz, ie things  
that can be customized and reused or used as-is for a wide variety of  
businesses to help with their process automation efforts.

===========================================

That's it for the intro, now a bit more meat for those who are  
interested in getting involved.

This library will consist of Business Process Stories. These stories  
are basically a series of sentences, each one consisting of an actor  
and an action. Just keep that in mind, it's _always_ actor and action,  
actor and action, actor and action. Hopefully that's clear... ;) All  
sentences need both, and may have conditions on them and other things  
as well, but always need an actor and an action. One basic rule based  
on that is no actions with actors.

The top level document has 3 main parts:

1. Actor Definitions
2. General Business Process Stories
3. Stories for Specific Types of Organizations

In part #2 we'll create the library of smaller stories that make up  
parts of the higher level stories that are in #3. For example, look at  
the Story of Retail Company:

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Story+of+Retail+Company

There are a lot of high level steps in that story that describe  
general business activities. These are assembled in a way that makes  
sense for a retail company, but many of the individual activities are  
just as applicable in different parts of the high level stories for  
other types of organizations.

Again, part #2 has smaller scoped processes that can be reused in many  
different types of companies, and based on writing stories for  
specific types of organizations we'll flesh that out to include a wide  
variety of business activities organized according to yet higher level  
business concepts, like the Marketing, Sales, Warehouse Management,  
etc that are currently in there.

In part #2 each of these process names should also include both actor  
and action, and for higher level things like this the actor should be  
the "primary" actor for the story, there will certainly be other  
actors involved in most of them.

The idea of using stories (aka "narratives") like this is a common  
one. Part of the reason for writing them specifically in the way I've  
described here is to make them a good starting point for business  
process oriented use cases, that can then have system interactions  
added to them (making them system interaction use cases) in order to  
drive further UI and system design efforts. For those interested, this  
is based on a lot of research I've done over the years while trying to  
work more effectively with clients, and I'm working on a book on that  
topic called "HEMP: Enterprise Software Analysis and Design", HEMP  
stands for "Holistic Enterprise Mechanization Process". On a side  
note, a better word for "mechanization" is "automation", but I thought  
HEMP would make a more colourful and interesting title than "HEAP". ;)

===========================================

A Special Note on Testing: the requirements and designs that come out  
of this effort will also help drive automated and manual testing  
efforts that go on in OFBiz. Sometimes a problem with testing is we  
don't know what to test, or what the business activities the software  
is trying to support. This will help with the problem. Along with  
these business process stories we may want test scenarios based on  
them, that are linked to from the stories. There may be many things  
linked to from these stories actually....

===========================================

If you'd like to get involved, please do! This is a chance for people  
that come from more of a business background to get involved in OFBiz,  
and do things that can help drive the direction of the project going  
forward, and create a foundation for customization efforts that will  
make OFBiz more valuable to end-user organizations.

-David

P.S. The content of this email is also available here:

http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/UBPL+Introduction

[BJ Freeman]

couple of short comments:
The datamodel books do describe different business process as it
describe data modeling. just as focused.
it also uses the model of common (core) processes then talks about the
unique requirements of particular business models.
I mention this as this as a possible place to populate some of the
entries you have put up, in the form you describe.

and not to make the documents to long how about entries as new page,
under the current pages.
they can always be merged later.


David E Jones sent the following on 11/13/2008 8:43 PM:

>
> Why a Universal Business Process Library for OFBiz?
>
> OFBiz is maturing. The framework is quite nice and has been pretty
> stable for years. Based on it we've built all sorts of business level
> functionality, creating an excellent set of generic base application
> artifacts that can be reused in higher level applications. More recently
> a number of people have started working on applications that are meant
> for one special purpose or another.
>
> To help push these efforts forward, to help refine the base and special
> purpose applications in OFBiz, to create a starting point for analysis
> for customization efforts, and to help organize ourselves as a community
> I'd like to propose that we create a Universal Business Process Library.
>
> The general idea is to create something like the "Universal Data Model"
> that has been the foundation of OFBiz for the last 7.5 years, and that
> will continue to provide the basic business information concepts that we
> all use on a daily basis. Instead of for data structures, this would be
> for business processes.
>
> I've spent some time over the years, and others I work work have spent
> some time more recently, trying to find some sort of business process
> library we could base this on, but with no real luck. The closest things
> I've found are some semi-helpful books about business best practices,
> and documents created as a part of a number of business related
> specifications. I've started a page with those here:
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Resources+with+Information+about+General+Business+Processes
>
>
> Still, these are not adequate for our needs, and even if they were I
> think we would want something that the community could get behind to
> maintain and expand, just like we do the code in OFBiz, and also tie
> these artifacts to actual things that exist in OFBiz. So, here we are, a
> few things I've thrown together to start assembling a Universal Business
> Process Library:
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Universal+Business+Process+Library+Index
>
>
> This isn't meant to include everything that every business might do, but
> to be a library of general business activities that make up common
> processes that are shared by a wide variety of businesses. Some may of
> course be less commonly used, just as certain features in OFBiz are, but
> the general intent will be similar to that of OFBiz, ie things that can
> be customized and reused or used as-is for a wide variety of businesses
> to help with their process automation efforts.
>
> ===========================================
>
> That's it for the intro, now a bit more meat for those who are
> interested in getting involved.
>
> This library will consist of Business Process Stories. These stories are
> basically a series of sentences, each one consisting of an actor and an
> action. Just keep that in mind, it's _always_ actor and action, actor
> and action, actor and action. Hopefully that's clear... ;) All sentences
> need both, and may have conditions on them and other things as well, but
> always need an actor and an action. One basic rule based on that is no
> actions with actors.
>
> The top level document has 3 main parts:
>
> 1. Actor Definitions
> 2. General Business Process Stories
> 3. Stories for Specific Types of Organizations
>
> In part #2 we'll create the library of smaller stories that make up
> parts of the higher level stories that are in #3. For example, look at
> the Story of Retail Company:
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/Story+of+Retail+Company
>
> There are a lot of high level steps in that story that describe general
> business activities. These are assembled in a way that makes sense for a
> retail company, but many of the individual activities are just as
> applicable in different parts of the high level stories for other types
> of organizations.
>
> Again, part #2 has smaller scoped processes that can be reused in many
> different types of companies, and based on writing stories for specific
> types of organizations we'll flesh that out to include a wide variety of
> business activities organized according to yet higher level business
> concepts, like the Marketing, Sales, Warehouse Management, etc that are
> currently in there.
>
> In part #2 each of these process names should also include both actor
> and action, and for higher level things like this the actor should be
> the "primary" actor for the story, there will certainly be other actors
> involved in most of them.
>
> The idea of using stories (aka "narratives") like this is a common one.
> Part of the reason for writing them specifically in the way I've
> described here is to make them a good starting point for business
> process oriented use cases, that can then have system interactions added
> to them (making them system interaction use cases) in order to drive
> further UI and system design efforts. For those interested, this is
> based on a lot of research I've done over the years while trying to work
> more effectively with clients, and I'm working on a book on that topic
> called "HEMP: Enterprise Software Analysis and Design", HEMP stands for
> "Holistic Enterprise Mechanization Process". On a side note, a better
> word for "mechanization" is "automation", but I thought HEMP would make
> a more colourful and interesting title than "HEAP". ;)
>
> ===========================================
>
> A Special Note on Testing: the requirements and designs that come out of
> this effort will also help drive automated and manual testing efforts
> that go on in OFBiz. Sometimes a problem with testing is we don't know
> what to test, or what the business activities the software is trying to
> support. This will help with the problem. Along with these business
> process stories we may want test scenarios based on them, that are
> linked to from the stories. There may be many things linked to from
> these stories actually....
>
> ===========================================
>
> If you'd like to get involved, please do! This is a chance for people
> that come from more of a business background to get involved in OFBiz,
> and do things that can help drive the direction of the project going
> forward, and create a foundation for customization efforts that will
> make OFBiz more valuable to end-user organizations.
>
> -David
>
> P.S. The content of this email is also available here:
>
> http://docs.ofbiz.org/display/OFBREQDES/UBPL+Introduction
>
>
>
>