Business Process Analysis Worksheets and Guidelines

Business Process Analysis Worksheets and Guidelines

The primary goal of the ebXML effort is to facilitate the integration of e-businesses throughout
the world with each other. Towards this end much of the work in ebXML has focused on the
notion of a public process: the business process(es) by which external entities interact with an e-
business. The specification and integration to such public processes has long been recognized as
a significant cost to such businesses. In order to reduce this cost ebXML is recommending the
use of Business Libraries. The principle goals of these libraries are to:
a.) Promote reuse of common business processes and objects
b.) Provide a place where companies and standards bodies could place the specifications of their
public processes where appropriate trading partners could access them.
In order to realize these goals, a lingua franca needed to be leveraged so that all users of this
repository could understand what each other are specifying. The ebXML community has decided
to use as its lingua franca the semantic subset of the UMM Metamodel, specified by the
UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology in the N090 specification.
The UMM “is targeted primarily at personnel knowledgeable in modeling methodology who
facilitate business process analysis sessions and provide modeling support. It also serves as a
checklist for standardized models when a previously specified business process is contributed to
UN/CEFACT for inclusion and incorporation as a standard business process model.” [UMM]
This document contains several worksheets that guide analysts towards UMM compliant
specifications of their business processes. We have tried to provide tools for users regardless of
whether we’re working on behalf of a standards body or an individual company. Furthermore,
we provide a variety of scenarios guiding how one might go about filling out these worksheets
(e.g. top-down vs. bottom up). The UMM can be used as a reference for understanding the
details of the underlying Metamodel and UMM methodology.
Different degrees of rigor are required within these worksheets. As we approach the lower level,
certain elements and organization of the specification are required to meet the requirements of
the ebXML technical framework. At higher levels there is a good deal of latitude about the way
concepts are grouped. In many cases, things such as assumptions and constraints will be
specified in natural language rather then in a formal one.