HELP IS ON THE WAY – PROVIDING USER SUPPORT FOR EPC MODELLING VIA A SYSTEMATIC PROCEDURE MODEL

Process models and consequently business process modelling languages get more and more complex. This is especially true for the event-driven process chain (EPC), since the absence of a clearly defined standard renders EPC modelling difficult. On top, modelling itself is no trivial task. To address this issue, several frameworks and guidelines have emerged to support process modelling. However, most of them remain at a generic level. Currently, there is no user support with respect to the actual modelling process that is specific to the EPC language. To address these needs, the paper applies a design-oriented research approach and proposes a systematic procedure model specifically tailored towards EPC mod-elling as current outcome of this research in progress. We argue that the procedure model facilitates the modelling process and thus has the potential to increase model quality

The Structured Process Modeling Method (SPMM) : what is the best way for me to construct a process model?

More and more organizations turn to the construction of process models to support strategical and operational tasks. At the same time, reports indicate quality issues for a considerable part of these models, caused by modeling errors. Therefore, the research described in this paper investigates the development of a practical method to determine and train an optimal process modeling strategy that aims to decrease the number of cognitive errors made during modeling. Such cognitive errors originate in inadequate cognitive processing caused by the inherent complexity of constructing process models. The method helps modelers to derive their personal cognitive profile and the related optimal cognitive strategy that minimizes these cognitive failures. The contribution of the research consists of the conceptual method and an automated modeling strategy selection and training instrument. These two artefacts are positively evaluated by a laboratory experiment covering multiple modeling sessions and involving a total of 149 master students at Ghent University

User-centered Process Management through Natural Language Support

Geschäftsprozessmodellierung hat sich Unternehmen für die Erfassung und Dokumentation von Unternehmens-internen Abläufen etabliert. Diese Erfassung resultiert in einer Vielzahl von Prozessmodellen, die in Umfang und Qualität stark variieren. Trotz Unternehmensinternen Modellierungsrichtlinien, haben sich allerdings keine allgemein gültigen Qualitätsstandards durchsetzen können. In dieser Arbeit werden verschiedene Richtlininen zur Qualität von Prozessmodellen betrachtet und auf ihre Nützlichkeit und Aussagekraft untersucht. Aus diesen sowie Richtlinien aus der kognitiven Psychologie soll eine Sammlung an Richtlinien entstehen, welche ein Rahmenwerk für ein qualitativ hochwertiges Prozessmodell darstellen. Des Weiteren zeigt die Arbeit durch eine Verknüpfung von Prozessmodell und natürlich sprachlichen Prozessbeschreibung eine Möglichkeit, zusätzliche Informationen an den Betrachter weiter zu geben. Durch diese Verknüpfung werden einige der Richtlinien unterstützt und eine bessere Verständlichkeit des Prozessmodells geschaffen. Diese Arbeit stellt eine Zusammmenfassung verschiedener Richtlinien dar, um Anfängern in der Prozessmodellierung die Qualitätsstandards näher zu bringen

Primitives: Design Guidelines and Architecture for BPMN Models

The Business Process Modeling Notation has emerged as a popular choice for representing processes among Business Analysts and Information Systems professionals. While the BPMN specification provides a rich syntax for the capture and representation of process models, it does not provide any guidance for the organization of the resulting models. As a consequence, large process libraries may become disorganized and hard to manage due to variability in abstraction levels, process interfaces, and activity descriptions. Based on the analysis of a process library in a US government agency we present a proposal for design guidelines and use our design guideline to qualitatively assess existing work on model quality guidance. To better organize models at different abstraction levels we propose a process architecture that allows for the systematic organization of BPMN models for different stakeholder concerns

How Social Distance of Process Designers Affects the Process of Process Modeling: Insights From a Controlled Experiment

The increasing adoption of process-aware information systems (PAISs) by enterprises has resulted in large process model collections. Usually, process models are created either by in-house domain experts or external consultants. Thereby, high model quality is crucial, i.e., process models should be syntactically correct and sound, and also reflect the real business processes properly. While numerous guidelines exist for creating correct and sound process models, there is only little work dealing with cognitive aspects affecting process modeling. This paper addresses this gap and presents a controlled experiment using construal level theory. We investigate the influence the social distance of a process designer to the modeled domain has on the creation of process models. In particular, we are able to show significant differences between high and low social distance in respect to model quality and granularity. The results may help enterprises to compose adequate teams for creating or optimizing business process models

Detection and quantification of flow consistency in business process models

Business process models abstract complex business processes by representing them as graphical models. Their layout, as determined by the modeler, may have an effect when these models are used. However, this effect is currently not fully understood. In order to systematically study this effect, a basic set of measurable key visual features is proposed, depicting the layout properties that are meaningful to the human user. The aim of this research is thus twofold: first, to empirically identify key visual features of business process models which are perceived as meaningful to the user and second, to show how such features can be quantified into computational metrics, which are applicable to business process models. We focus on one particular feature, consistency of flow direction, and show the challenges that arise when transforming it into a precise metric. We propose three different metrics addressing these challenges, each following a different view of flow consistency. We then report the results of an empirical evaluation, which indicates which metric is more effective in predicting the human perception of this feature. Moreover, two other automatic evaluations describing the performance and the computational capabilities of our metrics are reported as well

An overview of process model quality literature - The Comprehensive Process Model Quality Framework

The rising interest in the construction and the quality of (business) process models resulted in an abundancy of emerged research studies and different findings about process model quality. The lack of overview and the lack of consensus hinder the development of the research field. The research objective is to collect, analyse, structure, and integrate the existing knowledge in a comprehensive framework that strives to find a balance between completeness and relevance without hindering the overview. The Systematic Literature Review methodology was applied to collect the relevant studies. Because several studies exist that each partially addresses this research objective, the review was performed at a tertiary level. Based on a critical analysis of the collected papers, a comprehensive, but structured overview of the state of the art in the field was composed. The existing academic knowledge about process model quality was carefully integrated and structured into the Comprehensive Process Model Quality Framework (CPMQF). The framework summarizes 39 quality dimensions, 21 quality metrics, 28 quality (sub)drivers, 44 (sub)driver metrics, 64 realization initiatives and 15 concrete process model purposes related to 4 types of organizational benefits, as well as the relations between all of these. This overview is thus considered to form a valuable instrument for both researchers and practitioners that are concerned about process model quality. The framework is the first to address the concept of process model quality in such a comprehensive way