IT support conversation manager - HPL technical report

http://library.hp.com/techpubs/2010/HPL-2010-46.pdf




There is a push in the enterprise towards facilitating
processes from best practice frameworks (such as the IT
Infrastructure Library (ITIL)) to make them more repeatable,
efficient and cost-effective. Best practice processes provide
descriptive, high level guidelines rather than prescriptive,
precise process model definitions. They are meant to be
followed by people and may be adapted and enacted differently
in various realizations. Currently, ITIL processes are
supported by tools that hard code an interpretation of the
process logic, or by people who use productivity tools. This is
inefficient due to the rigidity of process logic encoded in existing
tools which does not allow collaborative and flexible
realizations of processes. Moreover, there is the issue of
information loss when people are only using rigid productivity
tools that force them to collaborate outside of tools. In this
paper, we present a light-weight conversation-centered
approach and a tool for dynamic and flexible definition and
enactment of best practice processes in a collaborative and
interactive manner. It addresses the issue of information loss
by using the concept of a conversation as a container of
information about the interaction among people in the context
of a process. It offers a process template definition language
and a semi-structured process model that supports flexible and
adaptive processes. We showcase the approach using an
illustrative use case based on best practice processes from
ITIL, namely incident and problem management.