RE: ebXML in W3C? (was) Re: 2 July BP meeting notes and 16 July BPmeeting notice

[John Yunker <JohnY@EDIFECS.COM>]

All, regarding BPSS submission to W3C, OASIS BTP...

I get worried about dilution of value when organizations that are normally
technology facing take responsibility for business information standards.
As such I worry about the resulting standards' ability to convey business
operations information and to enable business operations process alignment.

The focus in most groups talking "process alignment" has really been on
service alignment (as in software interface), primarily because of the
difficulty in the "ontology constrained by scenario" stew that surrounds
operations collaboration.  While the lack of support for aligning
operational processes guarantees business facing analysts/architects work
into the next millennium, it also puts a glass ceiling on the extent of
integration possible between businesses (since the business people must rely
on translation of their requirements instead of mapping their requirements).

Business alignment should be free of artificial chains to specific
technology, it should sit above both transport and application.  N090
attempts to do this by elaborating dependencies in the e-business protocol
stack between Business Operations Map (BOM), Business Requirements View
(BRV), Business Transaction View (BTV), Business Services View (BSV) and
Functional Services View (FSV).  Unless we provide a structure for
understanding dependencies between operations and implementation our
business operations managers will continue to see development as "black
magic" rather than traceable fulfillment of requirements.

Just as EDI pioneered the development of a common (albeit cryptic)
vocabulary for business information dependencies, we now need to develop
(less cryptic) vocabulary for business operations dependencies (upon which
agreements can be based).  These vocabularies MUST support both coordination
of business delivery timing / sequence AND coordination of business value.

This is why the patterns referred by Bob Haugen are critically important.
That is why patterns for multiple-transaction-collaborations must be
developed.

If the OASIS BTP is focusing on a protocol for service interaction over the
internet then it is indeed complimentary to the efforts of ebXML BP/CEFACT
TMWG,  and since it is lower in the stack BTP should be able to implement
requirements communicated through a CPP/CPA/BPSS specification (especially
when BPSS evolves to support N090 multi-transaction-collaborations and
CPP/CPA supports metric-based-business-value declarations).

The BPSS is currently implementation non-specific.  It should remain so as
it evolves to support more robust business operations alignment.

Thanks,
John