A comprehensive approach to flexibility in workflow management systems

Abstract

Flexibility has recently grown to be one of the major research topics in the area of workflow management. In this paper we focus on flexibility of workflow management applications, in contrast to flexibility of the implementation of workflow management systems. In a case study we show the necessity of flexibility in workflow management applications. This flexibility can roughly be classified into flexibility, which is provided by the workflow type, and flexibility, which goes beyond the scope of the workflow type and has additionally to be provided by a workflow management system. We call this flexibility by selection and flexibility by adaption, respectively. We point out that the modeling process as a main aspect of flexibility by adaption has to be treated as a CSCW scenario. The classification leads to a structured overall concept for flexibility in workflow management applications.