If BPEL is the answer, what is the question?

[David RR Webber - XML ebusiness <Gnosis_@compuserve.com>]

Diane,

Getting ready for the kick-off meeting on the 16th I just read the
BPEL draft for the first time.

Having never read this before - my initial impression is - 
who is the audience here?   The Abstract
and Introduction mention an awful lot of stuff - but this,
along with the business goals are hard to discern.

It is not at all clear what the long-term picture is,
nor how this works meshes with other OASIS
TC's such as CPPA, Access Control, ebMS, CAM, UBL, 
Registry and more.  Some are mentioned - but I sense
we need some architecture pictures here.

The normal OASIS procedure is to have a kick-off document
detailing such scope, focus and mission at a business level.

I guess with most of the team already having worked on the 
prior technical spec' - this important aspect is something that
has been internalized and taken for granted.    However,
for people outside who are now joining the OASIS TC,
its vital to know the mission details going forward.

I particularly found the Abstract and Introduction to be
very difficult to tie into a business environment, or
business terms, because they make many many
assertions - often without corroboration - and scattered
across their text without being gathered into a coherent
set.  This is definately confusing as to what is exactly 
intended, when and why at first blush!

Also the average CFO, CEO, or CTO I suspect would 
have very little clue as to what this might be all about 
as it uses many many technical
terms that are hard to fathom or quantify.

My sense is this big picture can be distilled here - but
we urgently need to have this in front of us to make
sure we stay on track and prioritize correctly.

I'm sure you share my concern to have good project 
practice in understanding the business goals ahead of 
going down into the technical approach to ensure 
the technical product delivers the required solution.

A quick search of the OASIS site will find several example
kick-off documents that can be used as good 
boilerplate (I can send one or two off-line if you need).

I hope I'm not the only one here finding this hard!

Thanks, DW.