The concept of a business process (BP), or workflow (WF), and the discipline and practice of business process management (BPM) have been around since the early 90s. Since then, WF/BPM tools have evolved considerably. More recently, a convergence of different tools has taken place, adding decision management (DM) and case management (CM) to the mix. The ascendance of data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence in the last few years has further complicated the picture. The mature field of BPM has been subsumed into the hyped pseudo-novelties of digital business automation, digital reinvention, digital everything, etc., with the addition of “low code” and robotic process automation (RPA).
A common requirement of business applications today is to be event-driven; that is, specific events should trigger a workflow or decision in real-time. This requirement leads to a fundamental problem. In realistic situations, there are many different types of events, each one requiring specific handling. An event-driven business application may have hundreds of qualitatively different workflows or processes. As new types of events arise in today’s ever-changing business conditions, new processes have to be designed and deployed as quickly as possible.
Continue reading “Designing an event-driven business process at scale: A health management example, Part 1”