Cooperating Process Components

Modern automated process support systems can be considered monolithic in three ways. First, they model processes top-down, usually from a single perspective, such as the organizational perspective. Second, they are process-centered, in that they often require extensive knowledge of the users, data types, and applications in their environment. Third, they tie process implementation to a specific representation, making reuse and interoperability between process models difficult to achieve. The paper describes the application of component based techniques to process modeling across overlapping process spaces. This approach, the Open Process Components approach, encapsulates process fragments as interoperable and reusable process components. The paper motivates a vision of cooperating components for automated process support, presents an overview of the Open Process Components approach, and shows the application of this technique to W. Humphrey's (1997) Personal Software Process.