Claims
- 1. A method of improving business process executions, comprising:
accessing process execution data generated by one or more components of a business process platform during execution of one or more instances of a business process involving a set of one or more activities each defined by a respective service and performed by a respective set of one or more resources; classifying business process instances in accordance with a quality taxonomy; and building a predictive model comprising a set of rules for scoring business process outcomes at different stages of the business process based upon the classified business process instances.
- 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the quality taxonomy comprises a set of quality categories each associated with a respective condition on the process execution data and a corresponding quantitative quality score value.
- 3. The method of claim 2, wherein classifying business process instances comprises applying the quality taxonomy to process execution data to characterize business process instances with respective quality score values.
- 4. The method of claim 1, wherein building the predictive model comprises partitioning the business process into a set of logical stages.
- 5. The method of claim 4, wherein each logical stage comprises a set of one or more nodes in a definition of the business process.
- 6. The method of claim 4, wherein building the predictive model comprises, at a given logical stage, generating rules for predicting outcomes of the business process based upon context data and a set of one or more business process entities invocable at the given logical stage.
- 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the predictive rules specify outcome probabilities for each category in the quality taxonomy.
- 8. The method of claim 6, wherein the invocable business process entities are selected from services or resources, or both.
- 9. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting process entities to be invoked at stages of an active business process instance based upon the predictive model.
- 10. The method of claim 9, wherein process entities are selected for invocation in accordance with one or more specified quality goals.
- 11. The method of claim 10, wherein a quality goal corresponds to one of: maximizing average quality per business process instance; and maintaining business process instance quality above a threshold value.
- 12. The method of claim 9, wherein selecting process entities comprises applying the predictive model to context data at a current stage of an active business process instance to obtain predictions of business process outcomes for each business process entity invocable at the current business process stage.
- 13. The method of claim 9, wherein the invocable business process entities are selected from services or resources, or both.
- 14. A computer program for improving business process executions, the computer program residing on a computer-readable medium and comprising computer-readable instructions for causing a computer to:
access process execution data generated by one or more components of a business process platform during execution of one or more instances of a business process involving a set of one or more activities each defined by a respective service and performed by a respective set of one or more resources; classify business process instances in accordance with a quality taxonomy; and build a predictive model comprising a set of rules for scoring business process outcomes at different stages of the business process based upon the classified business process instances.
- 15. A method of improving a business process, comprising:
selecting process entities to be invoked at stages of an active business process instance based upon a predictive model comprising a set of rules for scoring business process outcomes at different stages of the business process.
- 16. The method of claim 15, wherein business process outcomes are scored in terms of a quality taxonomy.
- 17. The method of claim 16, wherein the quality taxonomy comprises a set of quality categories each associated with a respective condition on the process execution data and a corresponding quantitative quality score value.
- 18. The method of claim 16, wherein process entities are selected for invocation in accordance with one or more specified quality goals.
- 19. The method of claim 18, wherein a quality goal corresponds to one of: maximizing average quality per business process instance; and maintaining business process instance quality above a threshold value.
- 20. The method of claim 15, wherein selecting process entities comprises applying the predictive model to context data at a current stage of an active business process instance to obtain predictions of business process outcomes for each business process entity invocable at the current business process stage.
- 21. The method of claim 15, wherein the invocable business process entities are selected from services or resources, or both.
- 22. A computer program for improving business process executions, the computer program residing on a computer-readable medium and comprising computer-readable instructions for causing a computer to:
select process entities to be invoked at stages of an active business process instance based upon a predictive model comprising a set of rules for scoring business process outcomes at different stages of the business process.
- 23. A method of improving business process executions, comprising:
prompting a user to define a quality taxonomy for classifying outcomes of instances of a business process involving a set of one or more activities each defined by a respective service and performed by a respective set of one or more resources.
- 24. The method of claim 23, wherein the quality taxonomy comprises a set of quality categories each associated with a respective condition on the process execution data and a corresponding quantitative quality score value.
- 25. The method of claim 23, further comprising prompting a user to define one or more quality goals in accordance with which business process entities are to be selected for invocation at stages of an active business process instance.
- 26. The method of claim 25, wherein a quality goal corresponds to one of: maximizing average quality per business process instance; and maintaining business process instance quality above a threshold value.
- 27. A system for improving business process executions, comprising a graphical user interface configured to:
prompt a user to define a quality taxonomy for classifying outcomes of instances of a business process involving a set of one or more activities each defined by a respective service and performed by a respective set of one or more resources.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
[0001] This application relates to the following co-pending applications, each of which is incorporated herein by reference: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/860,230, filed May 17, 2001, by Fabio Casati et al. and entitled “Method of Identifying and Analyzing Business Processes from Workflow Audit Files;” U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, filed ______, by Fabio Casati et al. and entitled “Investigating Business Processes” [Attorney Docket No. 10019712-1]; U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, filed ______, by Fabio Casati et al. and entitled “Analyzing Decision Points in Business Processes” [Attorney Docket No. 10019715-1].