Info: Touch Screen Gesture-based Process Modelling

Picture on the left shows Markus Rittenbruch and Fortune Truong working in the QUT VISER laboratory on our new gesture-based process modeller, destined for the QUT Cube.

We have implemented a set of gestures to promote its use with large scale touch screen collaboration systems, such as the Cube.   Note, both participants in the image are modelling concurrently, as it is a multi-user system.

We will be looking for process modelling volunteers soon to perform a collaboration experiment. Keep your eyes peeled for an invite to take part in some leading edge collaborative modelling research.

Many thanks to Michael Rosemann (HOS) and Ian Mackinnon (IFE) for support, and the VISER laboratory for access to their Star Wars gear.

This project is a collaboration involving myself, Erik Poppe and Artem Polyvany at QUT, and Alex Nolte at Bochum University, Germany.

Get in contact if you are interested in the project.

Ross

Video: Virtual World S-BPM Elicitator

Video of S-BPM based virtual world modelling tool developed by my Honours student Joel Harman with the financial assistance of Metasonic, AG - http://www.metasonic.de/

The tool allows a stakeholder to use a 3D representation of their work place to provide activity and message information to create an S-BPM model.

This was presented and tested in focus groups at the S-BPM One conference in Eichstaett over Easter.

Well done Joel! Thanks again to Metasonic for the provision of a scholarship for Joel and travel money to Eichstaett.

Ross

Video: Smart Services CRC Presentation

The Smart Services CRC have on their website a video of me delivering a six minute presentation on using virtual worlds for process training.

Please pardon my wrinkly shirt. I had just got off the plane two hours before delivering the presentation. :-)

Ross

BPM Redux Predictions 2010

BPM Evangelist/Critique Theo Priestley has fired up a website called BPM Redux. He has a strong interest in my research regarding the use of Virtual Environments for BPM, and has mentioned my work in previous blog entries. His latest article is an interesting set of predictions for 2010. Well worth a read, and I sincerely hope his predictions for the uptake of 3D Virtual Worlds for BPM comes to pass. Though I have to laugh at his statement about AR for BPM as "We're still ironing out the kinks on this one…..," as I hope to run an Honours project on AR for BPM this year. Should get some kinks out real soon. :-)

I'll keep you all posted on the results as usual.

Ross

BPM Book: Modern Business Process Automation

My colleagues in the YAWL project at QUT have released a new book entitled, "Modern Business Process Automation: YAWL and its Support Environment" via Springer Verlag. YAWL is the workflow tool I have been using in my research in Open Simulator. The book web site information now follows.

This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the field of Business Process Management (BPM) with a focus on Business Process Automation. It achieves this by covering a wide range of topics, both introductory and advanced, illustrated through and grounded in the YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language) language and corresponding open-source support environment. In doing so it provides the reader with a deep, timeless, and vendor-independent understanding of the essential ingredients of business process automation.

The BPM field is in a continual state of flux and is subject to both the ongoing proposal of new standards and the introduction of new tools and technology. Its fundamentals however are relatively stable and this book aims to equip the reader with both a thorough understanding of them and the ability to apply them to better understand, assess and utilize new developments in the BPM field.

As a consequence of its topic-based format and the inclusion of a broad range of exercises, the book is eminently suitable for use in tertiary education, both at the undergraduate and the postgraduate level, for students of computer science and information systems. BPM researchers and practitioners will also find it a valuable resource. The book serves as a unique reference to a varied and comprehensive collection of topics that are relevant to the business process life-cycle.

Ross

QUT BPM Wordle

Last weekend our research group had a retreat at the O'Reilly's Forest Retreat in Lamington National Park, Qld. I ran a session where I asked the group members present to write down five phrases that represent their research work. After removing obvious phrases, such as Business Process Management and Services, I uploaded the data to the Many Eyes visualisation service at IBM, and came up with this Wordle.

A Wordle displays words from a sequence of text, in a size that is proportional to the number of times it is present. It is often used in folksonomy research, as it provides insight into emerging clusters of terms within the language of a community.

Enjoy.

Ross

Analyse or Execute

From Yusuf Pisan's website quote of the day.

Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute - Abelson and Sussman

So, applying this to process models, does this statement hold?

Ross

BPMNexus Professional Network

Was just invited to join this professional group called BPMNexus. Seems to be garnering a lot of attention from BPM professionals. As we say in OZ, "Give it a burl!"

Ross