Here is how I impemented it with JBoss 5.1.0 :
1- Deploy a custom-jboss-beans.xml file :
2- Use it in code (exception handling omitted) :
MBeanServer server = MBeanServerLocator.locateJBoss();WorkManager wm = (WorkManager) server.getAttribute(new ObjectName("custom:service=CustomWorkManager"), "Instance");wm.startWork(aWork);