Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference

on System Sciences - 1999

Virtualization of Organizations: Consequences for Workflow Modeling

Wolfgang Ortner, Chris Stary University of Linz Department of Business Information Systems, Communications Engineering Freistdterstrasse 315, A-4040 Linz, Austria phone: ++43 732 2468 7108, fax: ++43 732 2468 7111 email: Wolfgang.Ortner@ce.uni-linz.ac.at

Abstract
In this paper we propose to introduce novel constructs for workflow modeling in the context of changing the organization of work when virtualizing organizations. We do not only develop a list of required constructs in a structured way, but also show how existing approaches could be enhanced through modeling different modes of work. We present the results of analyzing traditional workflow specification languages against the structured requirements. The proposals focus on organizing collaboration in distributed work environments, ensuring the utmost compatibility of traditional workflow modeling techniques with the enhancements.

cannot be represented with traditional entities and relationships. Hence, in order to enable a complete specification of virtual organizations, traditional workflow concepts have to capture concepts and properties of tele-cooperation. In this paper we discuss the migration of specification concepts for tele-cooperation with those for workflow modeling. First, we clarify the essence of functional virtual organizations (section 2). We proceed (i) presenting traditional concepts to represent work flows, (ii) develop detailed requirements to represent the essence of virtual organizations, (iii) check the concepts of traditional workflow specification languages against the list of requirements, and (iv) propose some solutions on how to meet the derived requirements for modeling work flows in virtual organizations (section 3). The paper concludes with an appraisal of results and topics for further research (section 4).

1. Introduction
Virtual organization is a term and a concept that is still under investigation, since there does not seem to exist a commonly agreed definition of virtual organizations, e.g [2] (p.5 ff). However, there seems to be agreement that the virtualization of organizations affects the organization of work, e.g [4], as well as (conceptual or logical) models of organizations, such as business processes. These models define chains of collaboration along which people have to cooperate to achieve some desired outcome, defined as business objectives [13]. Hence, besides the identified fundamentals of virtual organizations, such as common business understanding, core competence, or reduction of institutional bureaucracy in favor of ad-hocracy, the organization of production and service delivery changes fundamentally. Due to these fundamental changes virtual organizations have been termed to be the most influential form of telecooperation [3] (p. 306). Analyses of traditional workflow models and mechanisms for representing business processes have shown, e.g [1], that the particular characteristics of work in virtual organizations, such as global collaboration,

2. Virtual Organizations
Virtual organizations have essentially been defined as complementary resources existing in a number of cooperating companies ... left in place, but ... integrated to support a particular product effort for as long as it is viable to do so ... Resources are selectively allocated to the virtual company if they are underutilized or if they can be profitably utilized there more than in the home company. [7]. Hence, a virtual organization is a network of independent professionals or companies for the joint execution of projects over the geographical limits of the participating partners. From a functional and procedural perspective, joint execution is based on spatial, causal or temporal constraints as they are given through global processes. The infrastructure is provided by means of information and communication technology, thus, requiring the configuration and management (i.e. the organization) of workplaces equipped with telecooperation facilities.

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Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

In [5] (p.15) work involving tele-cooperation is defined as: Performing job-related work at a site away from the office, then electronically transferring the result to the office or another location. The following list reflects the major properties of tele-cooperation in the context of work: Place of work: The teleworker works always or partly out of the company. The working-place is partially the employees company premises and a teleworkplace. Work is performed where it makes sense [5-1] ( p.28). Time of work: Teleworking mostly allows very flexible working times. The time spent for work is either spent on the employees company premises or at the tele-workplace. There might be kernel-times when the teleworker is supposed to work [8]. Communication: Communication with teleworkers is only possible through the use of communication media like telephone, email, video-conferencing. However, informal information may get lost. The tele-cooperative exchange of documents between the teleworker and his/her partner(s) is considered to be one of the key tasks in telework [9]. Resources and security: Tele-workplaces may not be equipped equal to in-house workplaces. Resources and data might be out of direct control of the company [8] For the configuration of tele-workplaces and the establishment of tele-cooperation beside social, legal and technical issues there are several organizational and management issues which have to be considered [6,11], such as experienced in several projects: Telework leads to increasing effort for communication and coordination. The case manager must be able to contact each process participant with questions and requests for further assistance. When the teleworkers choose their own working time, outside, they might not be available for this kind of query [5-6] ( p. 55). To assure seamless communication, organizational measures are required to coordinate the exchange. [5-5] (p. 30) The workers role changes according to the new form of work. Teleworkers roles changes from being controlled/supervised to being empowered. [5-1] (p.26) Jobs evolve from the narrow and taskoriented to multidimensional, from a do-asyou-are-told mode to make-your-owndecision, from an internal to an external (customer) focus. [5-6] (p.55) The benefits of horizontal compression are particularly significant to telework; putting the

whole job in the hands of the teleworker removes any handing on of work to others, which in traditional structures imposes yet another communication overhead on telework arrangements. [5-4] (sec. 4.1) Tele-cooperation requires a change of the management style and synchronization of work. For the assignment of work to a teleworker the available resources at his/her tele-workplace must be considered. To manage virtual organizations, one popular new theory is that of participative management, the notion that employees become co-equals with their managers in planning and decision making. [5-4] (sec. IV2.6) Checks and controls are reduced. The inference for teleworking is clear. Teleworking depends on a minimum amount of overt supervision. [5-1] (p. 26) Managers change from being supervisors to coaches. They become catalysts. Channels for recognizing problems and providing facilities and for coaching and skill improvement are needed. [5-6] (p.58) Management moving from before-the-fact approval of work performance to a management style which is based on after-thefact review of output. Therefore, for the internal control the teleworker needs all the tools he/she needs to check his/her own work [5-6] (p..39). The implication for telework management is that teleworkers in re-engineered processes are given the means of taking decisions themselves, and must be given the training to help them evaluate decision outcomes. At the same time, vertical compression means reducing the level of formal interaction between teleworker and manager, removing a communication burden from both sides of the teleworking relationship. [5-4] (sec. IV-4.2) The case manager whose role is to be a bridge between all process participants to cope the process complexity requires access to all the information systems the process participants use. [5-6] (p. 55) For telework new forms of assessment of work are needed. The teleworker is out of direct control of his superior. As a consequence, the measurement of the individual work performance cannot happen any longer by the measurement of the working time. The measurement of work performance for teleworker has to be performed through the results of work.

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The focus for the performance measurement shifts from activities to results. [5-1] (p. 27) Payment by results is seen as one precondition for teleworking. Therefore the production of the intermediate results have to be monitored and linked to payment systems. [5-6] (p. 57) Monitoring teleworkers work: weekly records, regular two-way communication, face to face meetings. [5-1] (p. 33) Telework requires new forms of training and help. Job preparations changes from training to education, from how to why. [5-6] (p. 57) Telework requires additional security mechanisms. Additional security mechanisms are required for the security of data being transported to and hold at the tele-workplaces [5-3] (p. 5, p. 17, p. 26). From the listed characteristics of functional virtual organizations and experience with tele-cooperation, constructs for workflow modeling should take into account: the place and time of task accomplishment, due to the loose coupling of processes (R1) business processes required for tele-cooperation, in order to determine organizational and technical, if not social settings and changes (R2) communication facilities, in order to enable the collaboration of the teleworker with other employees (R3) principal functional roles for teleworkers with respect to the business processes (R4) synchronization requirements for timely task accomplishment on locally and temporally distributed business processes (R5) management of business processes involving telecooperation (R6) work assessment, comprising monitoring, controlling, and sanctioning (R7) training and help for tele-cooperating employees, when required (R8) additional integrity and security requirements due to the distribution of task accomplishment (R9) communication via different communications channels (R 10) specific restrictions for tele-cooperating like having locally at disposal particular resources (R 11). Each of the listed properties either deals with keeping the process of work stable, transparent, and consistent, or with the empowerment of employees with communication facilities and degrees of freedom with respect to decision making.

3. Extending Traditional Workflow Modeling Techniques To Capture Telecooperation

In general a workflow is considered as a collection of activities for the accomplishment of tasks. Each sequence of activities has to be performed in accordance with the business process of the organization at hand [10]. The workflow is composed of work objects and related control information. Both are passed from one user to another for stepwise task accomplishment in an organization. In a workflow model the following minimal information should be associated with each activity [14]: Pre- and postconditions (what conditions must be met before an activity starts, and when an activity is completed). Who has control over the activity through the assignment of activities to qualified users (roles) or application functions. Which other activities are required to complete the activity. The input/output of the activity, i.e. the data and control information required for task accomplishment. In order to represent the required information described above, a traditional workflow model contains various constructs. Typical constructs of traditional workflow models are: Organizational unit: Describes departments, positions etc. within the organization structure of a company. Role: Describes virtual employees. Staff will be assigned to roles. A role can be captured from more than one employee and vice versa. Activity, also called task or function: Piece of work within a business process. Data: Contains all data relevant for the business process. Event: Describes an incident which might occur during the accomplishment of an activity. Resource: Represents a device, a machine, a tool etc. which will be required to accomplish a task. Process: Contains several activities in the order they have to be accomplished to attain a business goal of the company. The following example (Figure 1 & 2) shows a traditional workflow addressing production planning. Figure 1 details the workflow with the notion of flow diagrams and assignment relationships for roles and data. The roles of people are production manager and dispatcher. The assigned data are orders, materials, machines, and schedules. Figure 2 details part of the corresponding organizational units and human resources.

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start

order materials

check availability of material not available available

production manager

machines

check availability of machines not available available

dispatcher

task data

role dedicated states sequence of tasks assignment

schedule

generate production schedule

send to manufacturing

reject order

end

Figure 1: Example of a (high level) business process for production planning.

management

employees

sales

production planning

manufacturing

agent

production manager

dispatcher

Organizational Units

Human Resource Model

Figure 2: Part of the Organization and Resource Model according to Figure 1.

In order to identify the required changes in workflow modeling languages we will use a commonly accepted framework in business process reengineering as proposed by [15]. First, criteria to evaluate workflow techniques are given. These criteria can be related to indicators that address some of the requirements for modeling telecooperation in the framework of business processes. Vossen et al. have assigned a set of indicators to each of the criteria.

These indicators can be related in a structured way to the requirements for modeling virtual organizations. The following table shows the criteria and indicators, and describes which of them are related to the features and the process of introducing different modes of work (X = low correlation, XX = medium correlation, XXX = high correlation). For each of the entries in the third row of the table explanations are given based on the previously listed experiences and properties of virtual organizations.

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CRITERION Complexity

INDICATOR Number of activities Parallelism of running activities Mutual dependencies of activities (e.g., sequential activities) Expense of back-propagation Number of involved employees (with different roles)

REQUIRED CHANGES

XX: There are additional roles due to the nature of telecooperation

Planning / Flexibility of the process

Knowledge and experience about the process Conformity of expectancy, uniformity, frequency of repetition Planning of the communication during consumption of information

XXX: The communication cannot be predefined with teleworkers strictly due to their flexible working times, and possible technical interferences X: Modifications may be necessary caused by organizational changes due to telework

Openness of the results of a process Required modifications due to organizational demands

Granularity of structure / Level of detail

Possibility of decomposition into partial steps (activities) Accuracy of the underlying task (i.e. of input data, solution rules, output data and involved employees) Number of employees involved in the process Requirement for coordination

Division of work / Allocation of tasks

XXX: Necessity of coordination increases with tele-cooperation XX: Temporal or causal overlaps may require synchronization mechanisms

Intertwining of processes

Number of interfaces to other processes Sharing data with other processes Communication with higher-order, parallel, or sub-processes

Table 1: Criteria and indicators related to the introduction of tele-cooperation Overall, it turns out that (i) the complexity of work flow management increases; (ii) virtualization requires flexibility and coordination. Going into detail the following requirements have to be met by workflow modeling techniques: (R1) Place and time of task accomplishment have to be represented: Workflow models should capture the place and time of work, namely as additional attributes to each of the activities. This way, consistency and integrity could be

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Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

(R2)

ensured, although work processes might be coupled loosely. Business process specifications are required that capture tele-cooperation: Workflow modeling techniques should provide additional elements to capture both the organizational and technical prerequisites for tele-cooperation: Within an organizational unit different types of employees (principal, teleworker) have to be specified. Workflow modeling techniques should provide not only functional roles, as they are required to describe activities along the accomplishment of tasks, but also organizational roles, in order to model different modes of work with respect to tele-cooperation. The resource specification should reflect whether a resource can be used by teleworker in a tele-cooperative setting or not. Communication facilities have to become part of resource management: Workflow models should provide constructs (resources) to describe those communication facilities available for tele-cooperation among employees. The principal roles of teleworkers from the business process point of view have to be represented: Workflow models should support the definition of special functional and/or organizational roles which can be played by employees with respect telecooperation and the tasks to be accomplished. The entire set of synchronization activities and constraints for timely task accomplishment have to be part of the specification: Activities should represent the place of their accomplishment as well as the events related to them. The latter can be used to synchronize several locally and temporally distributed within a process. Management activities of business processes involving tele-cooperation have to be addressed explicitly: A variety of additional information is needed about the resource management to plan, moderate, mediate, monitor, and control tele-cooperation. Work assessment has to be addressed explicitly: In order to assess processes and their results, the type of employee (traditional worker or teleworker) and the particularities

of the process with respect to tele-cooperation have to be considered. In order to meet this requirement, the definition of different modes of work involving specific organizational roles in addition to the functional ones have to be enabled (see also example in Figure 3). (R8) Tele-cooperating employees require specific help and guidance facilities: Special facilities for training and help needed for teleworkers should be modeled through particular resources that are activated through special events. Tele-cooperation might require additional integrity and security requirements: Model constructs to specify security mechanisms (e.g., privileges) for different work-places and roles, as well as for data and activities should be provided. Tele-cooperation might occur via different communication channels: These modalities have to be represented as part of the resources. It should be possible to define suitable communication channels for different events, roles and activities within a process. Specific constraints for tele-cooperation should be captured: For each resource it should be possible to define whether it can be utilized at tele-workplaces or not. During the execution of a process for every type of workplace (e.g., organizational unit) the available resources have to be known in advance.

(R9)

(R10)

(R3)

(R11)

(R4)

(R5)

In order to meet these requirements in a structured way, we will now revisit the list of constructs of existing workflow modeling technique given in the beginning of this section. For each of the constructs, the requirements to be addressed in the course of enhancements is given: Organizational unit: The traditional partitioning of organizations into locally available departments has to be enhanced with specific attributes, in order to provide insights into: Which workplaces actually are available for tele-cooperation (meeting requirement R2) Which form of telework the organizational unit practices (R2) Which resources are available for an organizational unit (R11) Roles: To meet requirement (R7) the traditional functional role concept has to be enriched with organizational roles capturing the mode of work:

(R6)

(R7)

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Two different forms of employment have to be differentiated: Traditional worker: He/she is provided with the same functionality like locally available staff members in traditional workflow modeling. Teleworker: He/she is provided with the same functionality like traditional workers plus additional functionality to cover: 1. Different forms of tele-cooperation 2. Type of availability (physical (local) versus tele-availability) 3. Delay in case his/her physical presence is required on site, e.g., for a meeting 4. Assigned principal(s) 5. Status of current activities 6. Current location of teleworker (the site of the company, tele-workplace, on the move) 7. Type of connection(s) available to the company / teleworker. In order to bridge the gap identified in (R4) roles have to be categorized additionally as follows: Roles that comprise activities that can be accomplished through telework in principle Roles that comprise activities that cannot be accomplished through telework. Activities (tasks, functions): The traditional description has to be enhanced to provide answers to the following questions: Is it possible to perform the activity through specific forms of tele-cooperation? (R1) Is it possible to perform the activity outside the company (Are there problems concerning security)? (R1, R9) Where is the task actually accomplished? (R5) Data: The traditional representation of data has to be enhanced to provide answers to: Is it in principle / currently possible to transmit data to a teleworker? (R3) Are there security restrictions that apply when data are transmitted via public transportation lines, and held outside the company? (R9) Events: In workflow systems handling teleworkplaces events may occur which have not to

been considered up to now in traditional workflow models. In order to meet the requirements (R5, R8, R10) workflow modeling techniques have to be enlarged with additional types of events like: The connection to the teleworker breaks down The part-time teleworker is not physically at the site of the company yet, although he/she should be there The teleworker is out of reach. A video-conference should be held. Resources: The traditional description concerning resources has to be enhanced to provide answers for: Can the resource be used at teleworkplaces? (R2, R11) Do novel communication facilities require novel resources? (R3, R11) Processes: In order to meet the requirements (R3, R5) the communication requirements and synchronization demands for coordination have to be represented. As a consequence, all management activities have to become part of this novel process concept. Then, the requirement (R6) can be met. Since the requirements have been discussed in the context of existing features for workflow modeling the proposed enhancements ensure the utmost compatibility of traditional workflow modeling techniques with upcoming developments in organizational engineering, namely the integration of virtual distribution of work into business processes. As an example, Figure 3 & 4 show a production planning process from a functional virtual organization [12]. The gray areas indicate the newly introduced elements. Figure 3 reflect these changes from the static point of view, namely extending the role concept with a type concept for the mode of work. From the dynamic (process) point of view the set of constraints for task accomplishment has to be specified along the sequence of the production managers tasks. Figure 4 shows a high level view of the required synchronization, i.e. the availability of the teleworker (production manager) before an order can be processed. In this approach R2, R5, R6 and R7 is met, ensuring the completion of a collaborative process.

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employees

management

teleworker

traditional worker

sales

production planning

manufacturing

agent

production manager

dispatcher

Organizational Units

Human Resource Model

Figure 3: Enhancing the Role Concept with the Mode of Work.

start

check availability of production manager not available available order materials check availability of material check availability of material not available available machines check availability of machines dispatcher production manager task data role dedicated states sequence of tasks assignment extension

Figure 4: Dynamic and Assignment Migration of TeleCooperation. [1] Alonso, G., Gnthr, R., Kamath, M., Agrawal, D., Abbadi, A. El., Mohan, C.: Exotica/FMDC: Handling Disconnected Clients in a Workflow Management System, in: Proceedings 3rd International Conference on Cooperative Information Systems, Vienna, 1995. [2] Arnold, O.; Faisst, W.; Hrtling, M.; P. Sieber, P.: Virtuelle Unternehmen als Unternehmenstyp der Zukunft, in: Handbuch der modernen Datenverarbeitung, Vol. 32, pp. 8-23, 1995 [3] Bhm, R.; Mller, C.; Siegenthaler,; Spahr, Ch.; Ulrich, M.; Wenger, S.: Das Unternehemen aus Sicht der Wirtschaftsinformatik, vdf, Zurich, 1998. [4] Communications of the ACM, Special Issue on Virtual Organization, October 97, Vol. 40, No. 10 [5] EU - Telework Initiative 1994-5, Interact (R2085) and Palace (R2090), [1] Legal, organizational and management issues in teleworking, [2] EU - SBNFinal Report; [3] Analysis of constraints to the development of teleworking in the European Economic Area; [4] Code of practice for telework in Europe; [5] Platforms and tools for transborder telework Systems; [6] Constraints and opportunities in Business restructuring - an analysis, DG XIII, Brussels, 1995. [6] Godehardt, B., Telearbeit - Rahmenbedingungen und Potentiale, Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1994

4. Conclusions
In this paper we have (i) identified the modeling constructs required for modeling tele-cooperation at workplaces in functional virtual organizations according to actual project experiences; (ii) checked the traditionally available constructs to model business processes in the context of workflow management including tele-cooperation; (iii) identified the conceptual gaps between (i) and (ii). The deficiencies of traditional workflow modeling techniques for the modeling of workflows comprising forms of work as performed in virtual organizations have been overcome through suggesting a list of enhancements based on traditional workflow modeling constructs. Once these enhancements become part of workflow modeling languages it is possible to meet the requirements for modeling functional virtual organizations. For instance, with the proposed extended workflow modeling constructs it becomes possible to consider the particular user roles and modes of cooperation in the course of process design, and during the execution of processes. As a benefit, problems arising from emergency cases or related to time-critical events, concerning the availability of employees, can easily be avoided.

References

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Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999 Proceedings of the 32nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 1999

[7] Goldman, S., Nagel, R., Preiss, K.: Agile Competitors and Virtual Organizations. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1995 [8] Gray, M., Hodson, N., Gordon, G.: Teleworking Explained, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chinester, 1995 [9] Huws, U., Korte, W., Robinson, S.: Telework Towards the Elusive Office, John Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chinester, 1993 [10] IBM: Flowmark, Modeling Workflow, Release 1.1, SH19-8175-01, 1994 [11] Kordey, N., Korte, W.B.: Telearbeit erfolgreich realisieren, Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig/Wiesbaden, 1996

[12] Ortner, W., Stary, C.: Workflow for Global Collaboration, in: IFIP WG5.7 1997 Conference Proceedings, pp. 261-270, Zurich, 1997. [13] Ould, M.A.: Business Processes - Modelling and Analysis for Re-engineering and Improvement, 1995. [14] Stary, C.: Integrating Workflow Representation into User Interface Design Representation, Software Concepts and Tools, Springer, 1996-17. [15] Vossen, G., Becker, J.: Geschftsprozessmodellierung - Forschungsbedarf, Thomson Publishing, Bonn, 1996.

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