Abstract. This paper describes a novel knowledge-based approach for helping workflow process designers and participants better manage the exceptions (deviations from an ideal collaborative work process caused by errors, failures, resource or requirements changes etc.) that can occur during the enactment of a workflow. This approach is based on exploiting a generic and reusable body of knowledge concerning what kinds of exceptions can occur in collaborative work processes, and how these exceptions can handled (detected, diagnosed and resolved). This work builds upon previous efforts from the MIT Process Handbook project and from research on conflict management in collaborative design. Key words: adaptation, failure handling, process exception, re-design Workflow systems are currently ill-suited to dealing with exceptions. These systems typically institutionalize a more or less idealized preferred process. When exceptions do occur we are often forced to "go behind the workflow system's back", making the system more of a liability than an asset. Workflow models can, of course, include conditional branches to deal with anticipated exceptions. Current process modeling methodologies and tools (Harrington, 1991; Davenport, 1993; Hammer and Champy, 1993; Grover and Kettinger, 1995; Kettinger et al., 1995) do not, however, make any provision for describing exception handling procedures separately from "main-line" processing. Inclusion of exception handling branches, therefore, can greatly complicate process models and obscure the "preferred" process, making it difficult to define, understand, and modify. Up-front prescription of exception handling can also reduce or eliminate the discretion workflow participants in precisely the cases most likely to profit from individual attention. Current workflow technologies provide, in addition, no support for uncovering what kinds of exceptions can occur in a given process model, and how they can be resolved. Process designers are then forced to rely on their own, probably incomplete, experience and intuitions about possible exceptions and how they can be managed.
A knowledge-based approach is also proposed by REF to determine when a workflow is going to fail.
A Knowledge-based Approach to Handling Exceptions in Workflow Systems
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)
Computer Science