The Next Evolution in Business Process Improvement
Organizations across various industries utilize business processes, which are standardized combinations of activities aimed at achieving desired outcomes, such as the production of goods or provision of services. These processes are often represented…
Organizations across various industries utilize business processes, which are standardized combinations of activities aimed at achieving desired outcomes, such as the production of goods or provision of services. These processes are often represented using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN). Business Process Improvement (BPI) is a key component of Business Process Management (BPM). Traditionally, the BPM lifecycle is sequential and does not prioritize handling failures systematically, considering them instead as issues due to insufficient planning.
To address this, AB testing offers a method to evaluate changes in system components by comparing different versions in a controlled, production environment. This method, particularly useful in business-to-consumer software systems, involves testing an updated version against the original to measure impact on performance metrics.
Reinforcement Learning (RL) can further enhance AB testing. RL optimizes a software agent's behavior based on rewards in an interactive environment, allowing for dynamic decision-making. This approach helps organizations quickly assess and implement improvements, minimizing exposure to less effective process versions.
Research indicates that a significant percentage of BPI initiatives do not yield improvements. For example, studies have shown that 75% of BPI ideas fail to enhance process outcomes, with some even causing negative effects. This highlights the need for more robust testing methods, such as AB testing, when transitioning from analysis to implementation. RL can support this dynamic testing by routing requests to the better-performing process version during the experiment.
These processes are often represented using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN).
The complete AB-BPM method emphasizes RL-supported AB testing of process variants as its core component, facilitating faster decision-making and analysis, thereby aligning with the DevOps principle of rapid iteration.
Aaron Friedrich Kurz, Technische Universität Berlin & SAP Signavio, Berlin, Germany Timotheus Kampik, SAP Signavio, Berlin, Germany Luise Pufahl, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany Ingo Weber, Technische Universität München & Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, Munich, Germany
This paper is available on arxiv under CC BY 4.0 DEED license.
Based on reporting by hackernoon.com.