A framework for formalizing inconsistencies and deviations in human-centered systems

Most modern business activities are carried out by a combination of computerized tools and human agents. Typical examples are engineering design activities, office procedures, and banking systems. All these human-centered systems are characterized by the interaction among people, and between people and computerized tools. This interaction defines a process, whose effectiveness is essential to ensure the quality of the delivered products and/or services. To support these systems, process-centered environments and workflow management systems have been recently developed. They can be collectively identified with the term process technology. This technology is based on the explicit definition of the process to be followed (the process model). The model specifies the kind of support that has to be provided to human agents. An essential property that process technology mut exhibit is the ability of tolerating, controlling, and supporting deviations and inconsistencies of the real-world behaviors with respect to the proocess model. This is necessary to provide consistent and effective support to the human-centered system, still maintaining a high degree of flexibility and adaptability to the evolving needs, preferences, an expertise of the the human agents. This article presents a formal framework to characterize the interaction between a human-centered system and its automated support. It does not aim at introducing a new language or system to describe processes. Rather, it aims at identifying the basic properties and features that make it possible to formally define the concepts of inconsistency and deviation. This formal framework can then be used to compare existing solutions and guide future research work.