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Home > CIIMA > Vol. 7 (2007) > Iss. 3

 

Communications of the IIMA

Abstract

The paper describes a project in the domain of business process modeling that concerns loosely-structured business processes, i.e. processes for which it is difficult to establish an order of activities. The process in focus is the lobbying process, i.e. a process aimed at influencing decisions of others, e.g. politicians. The project was carried out at a non-profit interest organization, and the paper describes the project’s motivation, structure, methodology, results, and how the results were exploited, including a short description of an IT system built to support the lobbying process. As the commonly spread workflow technique is not particularly suitable for loosely-structured business processes, the project exploited an original state-flow technique for developing a model of the lobbying process. The state-flow technique is based on the state-oriented view on business processes that has been used as a foundation for building the support system. The paper reports a number of problems encountered during the introduction of the system into operational practice. These problems led to the needs of reducing the level of details initially introduced into the system; they will be reintroduced at the later stage when the users become more accustomed to work in the process-oriented manner. In the conclusion, the paper discusses success factors important for modeling projects, and pros and cons of the modeling method used, as well as a broader research context of which the work presented in the paper is a part.

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