Rediscovering Business Processes: Definitions, Patterns, and Modelling Approaches

A Schema for Business Processes

Research regarding business processes shows that although there is a wide variety in terms of definitions, when it comes to the structural elements of a business process there is a common ground to build upon. Figure 1 presents a generic business process schema that involves the most common structural elements found in literature. These elements are put together in a hierarchical structure that reflects the relationships between them. A detailed description of all the elements of figure 1 is provided later in this section.

Figure 1.

Schematic relationship of the main business process elements

Starting from the top, it is necessary to recognise that although business processes are by definition placed within a ‘business’ context, they are a subclass of generic processes and as such they inherit all of their main properties as discussed in the following sub-section. Moving to the second level of the schema, business processes are placed in parallel with workflows and linked using a bi-dimensional arrow. Workflows –a term older than business processes– are closely linked with business processes and sometimes these terms are interchangeably used. The third level of the business process schema is based on the fact that many authors (see table 1) consider the actors, activities and resources as the basic structural elements of a business process. These are the three main concepts involved in most business process definitions, although more emphasis is put on activities and resources only. Actors are sometimes involved in a business process definition (Lindsay et al., 2003) or sometimes perceived as external entities that enact or execute the process. Activities are widely accepted as the central elements that execute the basic business process steps utilising the process inputs in order to produce the desired results. Resources are frequently classified as inputs or input resources and they are necessary for activities to be executed. Lastly, tasks are perceived as the smallest analysable element of a business process (Orman, 1995), although usually overlooked by most authors or having the same meaning as activities.

In order to fully perceive business processes, a complete and comprehensive explanation of all the elements of figure 1 is discussed below. An overview of the most common definitions that exist in literature for each of the structural elements of business processes is also presented.