Flexibility and Interoperability have become important characteristics for organisations and their business processes. The need to control flexible business processes within an organisation’s boundaries and between organisations imposes major requirements on a company’s process control capabilities. Workflow Management Systems (WFMS) try to fulfil these requirements by offering respective product features. Evidence suggests that the achievement of flexible business processes and an inter-organisational process control is also influenced by implementation processes for Workflow Management Applications (WFMA). [A WFMA comprises the WFMS and "all WFMS specific data with regard to one or more business processes" [VER01]]. The impact of a WFMA implementation methodology on the fulfilment of these requirements is the research scope of the project. The thesis provides knowledge in the following areas: 1. Review of the relationship between workflow management and the claim for process flexibility respectively -interoperability. 2. Definition of a research-/evaluation framework for workflow projects. This framework is composed of all relevant research variables that have been identified for the thesis. 3. Empirical survey of relevant workflow-project objectives and their priority in the context of process flexibility and –interoperability. 4. Empirical survey of the objectives’ achievement. 5. Empirical survey of methodologies / activities that have been applied within workflow projects. 6. Derivation of the project methodologies’ effectiveness in terms of the impact that applied activities had on project objectives. 7. Evaluation of existing workflow life-cycle models in accordance with the research framework. 8. Identification of basic improvements for workflow implementation processes with respect to the achievement of flexible and interoperable business processes. The first part of the thesis argues the relevance of the subject. Afterwards research variables that constitute the evaluation framework for WFMA implementation processes are stepwise identified and defined. An empirical study then proves the variables’ effectiveness for the achievement of process flexibility and –interoperability within the WFMA implementation process. After this the framework is applied to evaluate chosen WFMA implementation methodologies. Identified weaknesses and effective methodological aspects are utilised to develop generic methodological improvements. These improvements are later validated by means of a case study and interviews with workflow experts.

Concevoir les produits complexes tels que les avions, les hélicoptères, et les lanceurs requière l'utilisation de processus standardisés ayant des fondements robustes. Ces processus doivent être exécutés dans le contexte d'environnements collaboratifs interorganisationnels souvent dynamiques. Dans ce manuscrit, nous présentons un cadre formel qui assure une interopérabilité continue dans le temps pour les processus inter-organisationnels dans les environnements dynamiques. Nous proposons un langage de modélisation déclaratif pour définir des contrats qui capturent les objectifs de chaque partenaire intervenant dans la collaboration. Les modèles de contrats construits avec ce langage sous-spécifient les objectifs de la collaboration en limitant les détails capturés durant la phase de construction du contrat. Cette sous-spécification réduit le couplage entre les partenaires de la collaboration. Néanmoins, moins de couplage implique l'apparition de certaines inadéquations quand les processus des partenaires vont s'échanger des messages lors de la phase d'exécution. Par conséquent, nous développons un algorithme de médiation automatique qui est bien adapté pour les environnements dynamiques. Nous conduisons des évaluations de performance sur cet algorithme qui vont démontrer son efficience par rapport aux approches de médiation existantes. Ensuite, nous étendons notre cadre avec un ensemble d'opérations d'administration qui permettent la réalisation de modifications sur l'environnement collaboratif. Nous développons un algorithme qui évalue l'impact des modifications sur les partenaires. Cet algorithme va ensuite décider si la modification doit être réalisée à l'instant ou bien retardée en attendant que des conditions appropriées sur la configuration de l'environnement dynamique soient satisfaites. Pour savoir comment atteindre ces conditions, nous utilisons l'algorithme de planning à base de graphe. Cet algorithme détermine l'ensemble des opérations qui doivent être exécutées pour atteindre ces conditions / Designing complex products such as aircrafts, helicopters and launchers must rely on well-founded and standardized processes. These processes should be executed in the context of dynamic cross-organizational collaboration environments. In this dissertation, we present a formal framework that ensures sustainable interoperability for cross-organizational processes in dynamic environments. We propose a declarative modeling language to define contracts that capture the objectives of each partner in the collaboration. Contract models built using this language under-specify the objectives of the collaboration by limiting the details captured at design-time. This under-specification decreases the coupling between partners in the collaboration. Nevertheless, less coupling leads to the creation of mismatches when partners’ processes will exchange messages at run-time. Accordingly, we develop an automatic mediation algorithm that is well adapted for dynamic environments. We conduct a thorough evaluation of this algorithm in the context of dynamic environments and compare it with existing mediation approaches which will prove its efficiency. We then extend our framework with a set of management operations that help realize the modifications on the collaboration environment at run-time. We develop an algorithm that assesses the impact of modifications on the partners in the collaboration environment. Then, this algorithm decides if the modification can be realized or should be postponed to wait for appropriate conditions. In order to figure out how to reach these appropriate conditions, we use the planning graph algorithm. This algorithm determines the raw set of management operations that should be executed in order to realize these conditions. A raw set of management operations cannot be executed by an engine unless its operations are encapsulated in the right workflow patterns. Accordingly, we extend this planning algorithm in order to generate an executable workflow from the raw set of operations. We evaluate our extension against existing approaches regarding the number and the nature of workflow patterns considered when generating the executable workflow. Finally, we believe that monitoring contributes in decreasing the coupling between partners in a collaboration environment