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Subject-oriented Business Process Management (S-BPM) is different from current BPM approaches. In this chapter we want to explain what processes and Business Process Management are about and on which hidden paradigms current BPM approaches are based. Then we show how S-BPM is different to most of these approaches.

This chapter tells a short story about typical situations in production companies. You can skip this chapter at any time and go to the next chapter to directly work through the examples. Nevertheless, the story defines the context of the step-by-step examples.

This chapter sums up the story of the last chapter, so you could probably start reading this book here. The first scenario depicts a problem between an operations manager and a person from the logistics department; this means that in this case there are two actors. The operations manager is responsible for his team to meet certain production schedules and to cope with any problem that may occur.

After John Doe played through the whole scenario on his notebook while Norma played the other part on her notebook, he admitted: ″You see me baffled ... If anyone told me that you could create executable processes this fast I wouldn’t have believed it. Seriously - it is barely lunchtime!″ ″Yes ... it is really amazing that we were able to finish this whole process in such a short time.″ Norma added. ″You know, you are not the first consultants here. But you are the first ones who provided us with a running solution after only a few hours.″

After John, Norma and the proclaimed ″superheroes of the computer age″ had lunch, they went back into their room to continue working on processes. Al started by telling them: ″Okay, lets get started again. I really want to do one more process today so I can consider it productive.″ ″Okay″, John replied, ″but what do you want to do?″ ″You know, I have been thinking about that during lunch″, Norma started. ″We now have our process and all is very well between my department and John’s department. But the whole thing isn’t finished after we two agreed on a solution.″

This scenario extends the first scenario to include the order processing department. After logistics and operations manager agreed on a solution, this agreement has to be communicated to the order processing department which checks the changes with the ERP system. For instance, switching orders could be a problem if it leads to violating a customers due date, as this may result in compensation payments. Also, if a change in orders occurs, the changes have to be adjusted in the ERP system. This could lead to the situation that the MPS/MRP is not longer valid.

″This is amazing!″, Peter said, after he completed the process on his notebook. ″Seriously, this is exactly what we need!″ ″It’s good to see that you are also convinced by the S-BPM concept″, John answered. ″I do admit that I didn’t fully grasp the concept of it. But the results speak for themselves!″ Peter replied. Although they tried to explain the concept to him again, he was just missing the introduction the consultants gave at the very beginning as well as scenario 1. ″Don’t worry, we will give you all details about S-BPM later″, John told him. ″Well, Bob, it’s nice to see that they already have such a good understanding of S-BPM″, Al said. ″That’s true″, Bob replied, ″But you know, there is always room for improvement. ″ ″Improvement?″ Norma asked. ″What improvements?″

The next morning, the small party assembled again in the seminar room. Even Peter was there again. ″Nice to see you again, Pete!″, John greeted him. ″How come you are still with us?″ Peter answered: ″Well, after witnessing that S-BPM stuff yesterday, I really want to see the outcome of this project.″ Then Al took the floor: ″So, now that we are together again, I think we can start with our second day. I must say that I really like what we accomplished so far. But there is still room for improvement.″

This scenario puts together the various elements of the previous scenarios to create one integrated process. In this process, all necessary stakeholders are involved and able to communicate with each other. There is not much new internal behavior in there - the challenge is to merge two different scenarios into one. This will involve some copy paste from the previous models, including a remodeling of the operations manager, who now has to perform both internal behaviors.

After they finished modeling, John said: ″Well, I figured that after the first two processes I couldn’t be more impressed, but I guess I was wrong.″ ″Yes.″, Norma continued, ″This process is amazing! I know I probably already said that about the previous processes. Maybe I am easy to impress. But hey, I could totally imagine using this one in production!″