Scaffolds for Work Process Modeling

The project Scaffolds for Work Process Modeling is concerned with supporting domain experts in articulating their knowledge about work processes and enabling them to col- laboratively create consolidated representations that can directly be processed in infor- mation systems. Based upon earlier research, it adopts the pedagogical concept of scaf- folding to support the articulation and elicitation process of the involved people. Scaf- folding refers to the process of providing guidance to learners in completing a task and support them in developing the necessary skills themselves. The goal of scaffolding is to gradually fade out and ultimately become dispensable, because learners have acquired the necessary skills. In the context of modeling work processes, this is necessary, as actors cannot be as- sumed to have any knowledge in conceptual modeling, which is required to create ap- propriate representations. Scaffolds will be developed for collaborative model articula- tion and for refining the models towards syntactically correct and semantically complete representations of the work process. Articulation and refinement are collaborative acts that ultimately should lead to the alignment of different perspectives on work processes. The scaffolds need to be interactively adapted to facilitate the development of funda- mental modeling knowledge and skills and gradually fade out, as these skills develop over time. Adaptation is performed with IT support by iteratively analyzing the models and deriving suggestions for refinement. The result of the project is a set of socio- technical instruments which enables collaborative articulation and elicitation of work processes. The innovativeness of the project can be justified from a scientific and a prac- tical perspective. Scientifically, the project takes an interdisciplinary approach to ad- vance the state of the art in the field of supporting collaborative conceptual modeling. More specifically, it brings together concepts from linguistics and formal model verifica- tion to support people without any formal modeling knowledge in autonomously pro- ducing models of their work processes. By empirically validating the effects of the devel- oped instruments, it also will contribute to the state of the art in collaborative modeling methodologies and tool support. From a practical perspective, the project contributes to solving the challenge of funding IS design on sufficiently accurate and valid models of organizational reality. The application of the developed instruments poses an organiza- tional intervention, which can be supportive in resolving contingencies or ineffective work practices on a social level. In this way, domain experts can create models of their work processes themselves, thus reducing the likeliness of shaping organizational reality based on inappropriate models.

The main result of the project Scaffolds for Work Process Modeling is a toolset that enables people in organizations to share their knowledge about their work processes and align it with others. The results of these sharing and alignment processes should be directly usable to support operative work processes by means of information systems. This allows to avoid situations, where information systems are built upon invalid assumptions of the actual work processes, and consequently hamper them instead of supporting them. To reach this aim, the developed tools need to provide guidance for sharing and aligning knowledge. At the same time, they must not restrict these processes to an extent that leads to loss of relevant information about the work process. The projects approach to tackle this challenge is to use the pedagogical concept of scaffolding to provide adaptive support measures. Scaffolding refers to the process of providing guidance to learners in completing a task and support them in developing the necessary skills themselves. The goal of scaffolding is to gradually fade out and ultimately become dispensable, because learners have acquired the necessary skills. In the first part of the project, tools that support sharing and aligning knowledge about work were developed. These tools are designed to be deployed in workshop settings and have been classified, so that they can be selected according to the needs of the participants. In the second part of the project, a computer-based tool has been developed that support the validation and elaboration of the knowledge articulated in the workshops. The tool guides the participants in playing through the work process and identify problems or ambiguities in the initial workshop results. Whenever an issue is found, it can be resolved immediately. The result of this validation process can directly be imported in information systems that operatively support work processes in daily practice, e.g., by providing relevant information for a task, or enabling communication between the participants. The evaluation activities of the project have shown that the developed tools reach their aims and lead to the required effects. In the next research steps, the tools will be deployed in larger-scale case studies to examine their effects in real-world use.