Asynchrnous Collaborative Business Process Modeling Through a Web Forum


Phillip Kazanis 

Abstract
With the rapidly changing business environment of today, business processes, within and transcending typical business functional units, assume greater significance. Being able to visualise an organisation’s operation is often the beginning of identifying problems or new opportunities.  Tools and techniques that allow business process modelling have been around for many years now.  These techniques allow the accurate modelling of various aspects of a business.  However the existing methods of drawing and storing of the Business Process Models (BPM) can be slow and difficult to maintain.  Today’s business world requires a modelling technique that allows models to be developed more rapidly and maintained easily.  Additionally the models being developed need to have contributions from many different parts of an organisation that have not traditionally worked together. Internet and web technologies have created many new applications and methods of carrying out business and communications.  One aspect is collaborative environments which have been used successfully to help user groups, discussion groups and as sources of information. This paper attempts to show a potential approach to BPM that combines the use of the Internet, web technologies and collaborative environments with business process modelling.