Essential Principles for Workflow Modelling Effectiveness * A.P. Barros 1 , A.H.M. ter Hofstede 1 , H.A. Proper 2 1 Department of Computer Science 2 Faculty of Information Technology The University of Queensland Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD 4072 GPO Box 2434, Brisbane QLD 4001 Australia Australia E-mail: E.Proper@acm.org PUBLISHED AS: A.P. Barros, A.H.M. ter Hofstede, and H.A. Proper. Essential Principles for Workflow Modelling Effectiveness. In G.G. Gable and R.A.G. Webber, editors, Proceedings of the Third Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS’97), pages 137–147, Bris- bane, Australia, April 1997. Abstract While the specification languages of workflow management systems focus on process execu- tion semantics, the successful development of workflows relies on a fuller conceptualisation of business processing, including process semantics. Traditionally, the success of conceptual mod- elling techniques has depended largely on the adequacy of certain requirements: conceptualisation (following the Conceptualisation Principle), expressive power (following the One Hundred Prin- ciple), comprehensibility and formal foundation. An equally important requirement, particularly with the increased conceptualisation of business aspects, is business suitability. In this paper, the focus is on the suitability of workflow modelling for a commonly encountered class of (opera- tional) business processing, e.g. those of insurance claims, bank loans and land conveyancing. Based on a previously conducted assessment of a number of integrated techniques, the results of which are summarised in this paper, five business suitability principles are proposed: organisational embedding, scenario validation, service information hiding, cognitive sufficiency and execution re- silience. As a result, a further insight into workflow specifications and workflow deployment in open distributed architectures is claimed. 1 Introduction The workflow concept, proliferated through the recently emergent computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems and workflow systems (see surveys in [FYW94, WW93, Rod91] and [GHS95] respectively), advances information systems (IS) implementation models by incorporating aspects of * Part of this work has been supported by CITEC, a business unit of the Queensland Government’s Department of Public Works and Housing (formerly the Administrative Services Department). 1