Course Description
Focuses on implementing IT-Facilitated Business Processes. The primary outcome is to enable students to implement and manage a business process using business process management software. Students will apply four core models that guide the development of process-based systems: Business Process, Business Decision, Service-Oriented Architecture, and Business Data Model.
Athena Title
Adv Business Process Mgmt
Prerequisite
(MIST 5750 or MIST 5750E) and (MIST 4610 or MIST 4610E)
Pre or Corequisite
MIST 4600 or MIST 4600E
Semester Course Offered
Offered every year.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The four overall course learning outcomes are as follows: 1. to enable students to implement a business process directly from a business process model using a professional business process management software suite/system (BPMS); 2. to develop and deploy the associated process interfaces, business data model, business decision/rules model and software services; 3. to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to initially implement, and then to continuously evaluate, manage and improve the resulting process via the process model; 4. to be able upon completion of the course to easily learn and build an information system using any BPMS not covered in class; and 5. to be able to develop a robust manual business process when IT is not available. More specific learning objectives, related to these five overall outcomes are: 1. Successfully model, deploy and implement business processes on a professional business process management suite (BPMS) software platform. a. Be able to map a generic BPMN-notated business process model to the constraints of a specific implementation model b. Specify the underlying data model needed to support the transactional (or case-by-case) business processing c. Develop the additional specifications needed to fully describe and deploy the process d. Understand when, where and how to use simple external data and web services to provide extended functionality e. Surface and deploy basic decision business rules processing through the use of a Business Decision Management System (BDMS) 2. Design and deploy a useful and usable user and manager interface to the business process. a. Further develop and apply user-interface design best practices b. Design, extend and deploy the user and process management portals for the delivery of business process tasks, content and management 3. Be able to apply theoretical/conceptual models and skills. Students will learn and apply the theory/concepts in four core models that guide the development of process-based application systems: Business Process (BPMN), Business Decision/Rules (Decision Model), Service-Oriented Architecture (Service Model), and Business Data Model. 4. Develop the understanding of what service-oriented architectures (SOA) are and how they relate to and are used in BPMS development environment. 5. Develop the understanding of what Decision/Business Rules Management Systems (BDMS, BRMS) are and how they relate to and are used in BPMS development environment. At the conceptual level, develop Decision Models (sets of business rules) and implement these models in a BPMS environment. 6. Develop a deeper understanding and methods for managing changes in business processes and business decision/rules. 7. Specify the tools and develop the skills necessary to continuously evaluate and improve business processes at both the design level and the on-going, real-time adaptation of a running process. Do this by knowing how to: a. Select relevant event data from a running business process b. Develop, report, display and alert mechanisms drawn from process data available from the BPMS and use these data methods to adapt the process 8. Design a robust manual system to handle disasters and similar situations when there is a lack of power or access to computers.
Topical Outline
The following is the current proposed list of topics covered in class, and they are subject to revision. (1) Course Overview (2) System and Process Thinking (3) Enterprise View: System and Process Thinking (4) Process Modeling Review (5) BPMS Overview (6) Data Modeling and Mapping (7) User Interface (8) SOA Services (9) Decision Model and Business Decision Management Systems (10) Implementing Decision Model and Business Rules (11) Building Internal Services and Database Services (12) Portals and Performers (13) Business Monitoring and Intelligence (14) Design of Manual and Sustainable Processes/Systems (15) BPMS Models and Market (16) Decision Model Revisited (17) Creating Services (18) Building Services (Process Execution Languages) (19) BPMS Presentations (20) Cloud Computing (21) Applications of the future (22) Changes in System Development (23) Course Summary and Project Presentations The course will be conducted in the spirit of a combined seminar, lecture and lab. Each of the main topics will be introduced with an overview lecture. After that, we will move to a more interactive format in which each student is expected to contribute and participate in terms of questions, comments, critique, issues raised and problems solved, etc. As the course makes use of several pieces of software, time will be spent discussing their use and students' problems using the software along with ways to solve the problems.