“Soft” trigger modeling: a technique for incorporating intentionality into workflow specifications

Soft trigger modeling (STM) is both a process model and a knowledge explication method by which workflow management systems (WFMS) are reconceptualized from state- or event-based to knowledge-based. When multiple WFMS controlled by autonomous workgroups must interoperate, the utility of event-based WFMS models is limited, since unilateral changes in tasks frequently disrupt coordination between processes. Common business situations exhibiting the problem are outsourcing and virtual corporations. Conventional trigger modeling defines triggers in terms of fixed, predetermined events. STM extends trigger modeling by incorporating common domain knowledge and the intentionality of workgroups into the workflow specification, providing some ability for automated compensation for dynamic changes in task definition. In prior work the authors have set out the mechanisms by which trigger-based coordination can be automatically maintained following process modification, and the applicability of the Smart Object Model, a logic-object hybrid, for modeling WFMS. The foci of the paper are the knowledge elements of the process model, and an analysis method that populates the model