Peter Dadam has edited a special issue on Flexible Process-aware Information Systems that will be published by Springer in its Computer Science - Research & Development Journal in May 2009.
On the one side this special issue gives an overview of the different aspects and degrees of process flexibililty, and it wants to show which kind of technological approaches proposed in the scientific literature or product area fall into which category. This is done by the contribution "Beyond Rigidity - Dynamic Process Lifecycle Support" which is authored by Barbara Weber, Shazia Sadiq, and Manfred Reichert". This article provides a comprehensive overview and classification of existing approaches.

On the other side the special issue presents two existing process management systems, of which each has defined a milestone in the development of next generation process management technology: YAWL and ADEPT. For both systems, a retrospective on their development and the motiviation behind as well as their contribution to flexible PAIS is presented. The contributions "Surmounting BPM Challenges: The YAWL Story" authored by Nick Russel and Arthur HM ter Hofestede and "The ADEPT Project: A Decade of Research and Development for Robust and Flexible Process Support" authored by Peter Dadam and Manfred Reichert are providing these insights.
Last but not least, the special issue presents a declarative approach as alternative to the imperative style of expressing the execution order of process activities. Such an approach can be seen as a "stand-alone" solution, but can also be used to complement imperative approaches like those taken by YAWL, ADEPT, and other systems. The paper "Declarative Workflows" authored by Wil M.P. van der Aalst, Maja Pesic, and Helen Schoenenberg presents the latest development in this direction.

Further information and the papers of this special issue can be obtained via SpringerLink