Event Driven Process vs. Goal Driven Process

Event-driven is from start to end and Goal driven is from end to start. 

Event-driven processes are processes that are defined in terms of a series of triggers, whereas goal-driven processes are defined in terms of specific milestones and outcomes (goals). It is a viewpoint that differentiates the structured business processes and ad hoc (unstructured) case management processes commonly associated with knowledge workers.

Goal Driven and Event-driven are just two ways of process identification and cataloging. They are two sides of the same coin. Event-driven is from start to end and Goal driven is from end to start. Event-driven processes must have goals and goals driven process must have events identified as well to provide a complete view. Both techniques should be used as part of the preparation of process architecture and making sure, Enterprise can handle all events while meetings its objective. However, for consistent cataloging one way should be preferred over other. 

Touching on "process and case" management. By the very nature, business processes have a predictable outcome, so process can easily be identified with goals. However, case management is more ad hoc and depends on the expertise of the user. This in its nature works more from symptoms and outcome of previous steps which is are generally events for next step. So, case management is more easily identified as event-driven. Also, since you cannot generally replace the knowledge of the user, the goals of a process depend on the decisions of the user. Even in case management scenarios, there is an overarching goal you try to achieve. But most of the work is triggered by events (be it internal or external). 

Event-driven process vs. Goal driven process vs. Case management: Event-driven process, goal-driven process, and case manager are different but interconnected:

     (1)   Event-driven process 
- Events are real and based on what actually happened in the business
- Some of the events cannot be predictable during the process modeling 
- Need to analyze real data to understand the various events and sequence of events 
- External rule engine and logic is required to identify events,  and emit these events 
- BPM process to be modeled or establish interfaces in such a way that the emitted events to be consumed in the business process step / or trigger the BPM process and continue with process steps 

      (2) Goal driven process 
- Primarily defined prior to process implementation 
- Can have the top-down/bottom-up approach based on the target goal planned 

(3) Case Management process 
- Knowledge-based work with an unstructured and collaborative process that requires secure coordination of content, correspondence, and discussions with different groups. 

Event-driven or goal-driven processes are describing the nature of the processes themselves. Event processing is a term describing the management of responses to events. You need both for any system and should be readily supported in the chosen platform to handle both structured and unstructured requirements. Event-driven and goal-driven are just two from many coordination techniques which can be used together within processes and manage the process more effectively.

Posted in: Business Process Management,Connecting Dots