In response to a post that I wrote back in August about Metastorm acquiring Proforma, Jerome Pearce recently wrote the following comment:
I have just tried to convert a ProVision workflow model to a Metastorm BPM (e-work). I cannot see how it could produce a proper process in e-work. The concepts of the two packages do not map well.
Can anyone actually show me a design in ProVision that has been converted to Metastorm BPM using the provided Exchange tool? Nothing I have ever come up with in e-work could be properly represented in ProVision as the elements do not really match. There is no concept of ‘Stage’ in ProVision, and the use of Map Segments for sub-workflows makes the result very difficult to change (which is after all the whol point of e-work).
can anyone show us a real example?
I reproduce this here since I think that a lot of people don’t follow the comments feed so would miss a comment on an older post.
Any ideas on solving Jerome’s problem?
Would this be the same Jerome Pearce who runs a Metastorm BPM consultancy in Australia and wrote on his web site:
“We see a great potential for the tool to allow you to prototype a process (as we do in our methodology). You can take a complete ProVision Process model and convert it to e-work processes and ‘try them out’ in an executable environment. This can, in our experience, give you detailed insight from a user perspective that no amount of modelling can ever achieve. That in itself makes the tool very valuable. ”
And
“As one of the most experienced Metastorm BPM solution providers, we have unparalleled experience in delivering robust enterprise BPM solutions to organisations of any size. Coupled with our experience with Metastorm ProVision, we are in a perfect position to be able to offer the service to convert your existing Metastorm ProVision process models into functional, robust, executable processes using Metastorm BPM.”
Surely not!
Jerome does run a Metastorm BPM consultancy in Australia. I haven’t read his website, but I can imagine that it is prompted by the vision of what you can do, whereas his comments here are prompted by the reality once you actually try to do it.
The reality is logical models (Provision) and functional models are (e-Work) just different. I think the best approach is to allow the creation of functional models using a tool that’s not a quantum leap for a logical modeler trained resource to grasp.
Alan,
Yes, surely it is! I am not quite certain what you are trying to say, but I let me try to explain the context of the extracts.
The first comment was taken from a review of the conversion utility, and if you see the rest of the context, I point out exactly what I have stated here, namely that the automated conversion process does not give you an instant working model. I also point out, in its favour, that it can aid a prototyping approach. Just not a full conversion, which is what the stated goal is.
The full review, which demonstrates in quite some detail the problems you can encounter, can be found here:
http://www.processmapping.com.au/PV_BPM_Exchange.htm
The second extract is regading our ability to manually create BPM eexutable process models from ProVision models. Yes, it can be done, but the automation does not do it (yet) and it needs so much manual intervention that we consider an manual approach far more effective. If you read more, you will find the comment:
“Metastorm provide a limited conversion utility that creates Metastorm BPM files from Metastorm ProVision Process designs. There are, however, significant omissions, such as the concept of ‘Stages’, timed actions, flagged actions and the data model in Metastorm BPM. There are also issues when ‘Map Segments’ are created from sub-processes as it is not possible to convert these to Process Maps, or to combine them.”
The full article can be read here:
http://www.processmapping.com.au/ProVision_to_BPM.htm
I think I see what prompted Alan’s comment after re-reading my own comment. Originally I stated
“I have just tried to convert a ProVision workflow model to a Metastorm BPM (e-work)”
What I neglected to state was that I was trying using the provided conversion utility. Doing the conversion manually is much more effective, but you have to know how to use Metastorm BPM (e-work) very well to do so.
We have come across a Metastorm ProVision forum. It seems to be the only one around:
http://www.metastormprovision.net/
Jerome, thanks for the link to the forum. It doesn’t contain a lot yet, but looks like a good start. Very often, commercial tools don’t have any sort of public forum like this because it’s strongly discouraged by the vendor.
Is there anyone from Metastorm involved in this forum, or is it just customer and other interested parties?