Alexander Nolte

The integration of collaborative process modeling and electronic brainstorming in co-located meetings

Within a workshop, tools and methods have been employed to support process modeling together with creative ideation for identifying the relevant elements of the process. The process-design workshop was part of a project which aims at implementing new ways of data input and transfer for the coordination of services for elderly people. We have chosen tools and methods which seemed to be appropriate to support an efficient process design which integrates creativity and the differing perspectives of the participating stakeholders. This workshop led to a case study which revealed strengths and weaknesses of our approach and helped us to identify further recommendations and requirements for the integration of collaborative modeling and creativity support.

Awareness Support for Combining Individual and Collaborative Process Design in Co-located Meetings

The collaborative design of complex systems is a challenging task. It requires phases of linear as well as creativity oriented work. Also phases of collaborative work have to alternate with work in solitude, requiring a smooth transition between them. This in turn results in awareness becoming a crucial factor. Within the context of designing socio-technical processes through modeling we have developed tools and methods to integrate individual and collaborative creativity into modeling with special respect to awareness thus allowing for a smooth transition between phases of working in solitude and phases of collaboration. We have conducted multiple experiments on the subject following an action research approach which allowed for reflecting on the influence of awareness on collaborative process design in co-located meetings while also improving the socio-technical setting they were applied in. Derived from our findings we show requirements for further development of the socio-technical setting and show future directions such as the integration of the described setting into other areas of design.

Integrating Ordinary Users into Process Management: Towards Implementing Bottom-Up, People-Centric BPM

Despite its increasing success in organizations, traditional BPM embodies a top-down approach performed by a small group of experts, limiting process stakeholders to part-time information providers, hindering proactive contributions. In this paper, we argue that BPM can benefit from being complemented with a bottom-up and people-centric strategy, allowing for interventions by process stakeholders. However, this cannot be realized by turning ordinary users into BPM or modeling experts. Instead, there is a need to find appropriate means to engage these people into BPM, process development and modeling. In this paper, we present two explorative empirical studies exploring such means. As a result of analyzing these studies, we present five proposals towards the implementation of stakeholder involvement. Our work does not want to replace existing BPM procedures, but to complement them. Thus, it is a starting point for further research and as an opportunity to join forces with other researchers pursuing similar goals.

Fostering self-direction in participatory process design

In this paper, we describe an approach in integrating means of self-direction into workshop-centered methods of PD. The approach aims at diminishing idle times of participants, improving their motivation to contribute and thus at improving the quality of outcomes. Although the work presented here is ongoing research, preliminary results show its benefit and potential contribution to PD.

Normal users cooperating on process models: is it possible at all?

Can normal people use process models for self-directed cooperation, that is, without expert guidance? According to modeling experts and corresponding contemporary research, they cannot, because they lack competencies for such usage. While the importance of artifacts such as texts, pictures and diagrams to cooperative work has been shown in many studies in CSCW and related fields, there are no answers to this question from our discipline. This paper aims at exploring this contradictory situation by exploring how users without or with little modeling practice work with models. Based on an exploratory study, we show opportunities and barriers to self-directed cooperative work with models and derive requirements for tool support. These results are compared with existing work and show that despite the special characteristics of process models, patterns known from the usage of other artifacts can also be observed in cooperative work with models. Users also showed behavior typically attributed to modeling experts, thus transcending such generic cooperation tasks.

Combining Collaborative Modeling with Collaborative Creativity for Process Design

This paper presents a solution of how systematic design within facilitated walkthrough workshops is combined with phases of non-linear ideation for the purpose of collaborative process modeling. In the context of socio-technically supported co-located meetings, three design cycles were run which led to an evolutionary improvement. The result is a set of features as part of a socio-technical solution allowing to seamlessly intertwine creative phases with walkthrough-oriented inspection and improvement of models. The set of features includes the possibility of simultaneous brainstorming on several topics, variation of prompts per brainstorming topic etc. Additional features are described to support the facilitator.

Anyone can use Models: Potentials, Requirements and Support for Non-Expert Model Interaction

Models play an important role in modern organizations. They are used to coordinate the interplay of stakeholders, inform the design of software systems and are even used for controlling purposes. While these models affect multiple people within an organization their creation and usage is limited to a few experts. This is due to the common belief that non-expert modelers are not capable of performing modeling tasks or working with models without the help of experts. With this paper the authors argue that people are capable of interacting with models when they are given the right means to do so. The authors shed light onto the potential benefits of non-expert model interaction by conducting multiple case studies and describing suitable tool support for non-expert modelers.

Analyzing Collaborative Reflection Support: A Content Analysis Approach

Collaborative reflection helps groups to learn from work experiences for future work. Although its potential has been recognized and initial work is available, insights on how tools support people in collaborative reflection at work are scarce. We present an approach to analyze collaborative reflection support based on content analysis and an initial study in which it was applied to four cases of using a tool for collaborative reflection. From this we derive design suggestions such as levels of support for different groups and support for the creation of results from collaborative reflection. Our work contributes to CSCW by showing how tools can foster collaborative reflection at work.

Facilitating Participation of Stakeholders During Process Analysis and Design

Collaboration of stakeholders to contribute to process analysis and design is a common practice in organizations to achieve better results. However, while it has been acknowledged that for stakeholders being able to directly influence design not only makes for better results but also increases their motivation, stakeholders are mostly limited to providing information and leave the design for process analysts or consultants. Furthermore, stakeholders are only involved when process analysts ask them to contribute. Consequently, stakeholders are cut off from many activities that shape the resulting process analysis and design. To overcome this problem, we propose a twofold approach: Firstly, we provide a socio-technical concept that increases – in comparison to existing approaches –opportunities for stakeholders to participate in process analysis and design. Secondly, we propose a mix of methods to evaluate the quality of participatory modeling that allows for evaluating stakeholders’ inclusion and support deriving suggestions for cyclic improvement of the concept.

Repeated use of process models

Business process modeling has received a lot of attention from practitioners and researchers alike. Organizations make significant investments into process modeling in terms of training, tools, and resources. Yet, having invested into creating large process model collections, process models often fall into disuse, provoking the impression that the initial investment has been lost. While previous work has aimed at exploring model re-use as a design principle, our work examines repeated use of a model as a behavior and thus aims at identifying factors that facilitate or hinder the repeated use of process models by individual users. We develop a conceptual model of factors that can influence an individuals intention to repeatedly use process models. We evaluate this model through a cross-sectional survey of process model users from a large European financial institution. Our results indicate the importance of quality and ease of understanding of process models to repeated use, alongside individual factors, such as motivation and individual expertise. We identify means that help organizations to promote the repeated use of process models, which can assist them to increase the benefits of process modeling. We conducted the first empirical study of process model re-use intentions.We developed a conceptual model of factors influencing re-use intentions.We developed a measurement instrument to assess re-use intentions.We found that process model ease of use and usefulness increase re-use intentions.We found that a users motivation and process model accessibility increase re-use intentions.