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

The Structured Process Modeling Theory (SPMT): a cognitive view on why and how modelers benefit from structuring the process of process modeling

After observing various inexperienced modelers constructing a business process model based on the same textual case description, it was noted that great differences existed in the quality of the produced models. The impression arose that certain quality issues originated from cognitive failures during the modeling process. Therefore, we developed an explanatory theory that describes the cognitive mechanisms that affect effectiveness and efficiency of process model construction: the Structured Process Modeling Theory (SPMT). This theory states that modeling accuracy and speed are higher when the modeler adopts an (i) individually fitting (ii) structured (iii) serialized process modeling approach. The SPMT is evaluated against six theory quality criteria

The Influence of Using Collapsed Sub-processes and Groupson the Understandability of Business Process Models

Many factors influence the creation of businessprocess models which are understandable for a targetaudience. Understandability of process models becomesmore critical when size and complexity of the modelsincrease. Using vertical modularization to decompose suchmodels hierarchically into modules is considered toimprove their understandability. To investigate thisassumption, two experiments were conducted. The exper-iments involved 2 large-scale real-life business processmodels that were modeled using BPMN v2.0 (BusinessProcess Model and Notation) in the form of collaborationdiagrams. Each process was modeled in 3 modularityforms: fully-flattened, flattened where activities areclustered using BPMN groups, and modularized usingseparately viewed BPMN sub-processes. The objective wasto investigate if and how different forms of modularityrepresentation (used for vertical modularization) in BPMNcollaboration diagrams influence the understandability ofprocess models. In addition to the forms of modularityrepresentation, the presentation medium (paper vs. com-puter) and model reader’s level of business process mod-eling competency were investigated as factors thatpotentially influence model comprehension. 60 businesspractitioners from a large organization and 140 graduatestudents participated in our experiments. The results indi-cate that, when these three modularity representations areconsidered, it is best to present the model in a ‘flattened’form (with or without the use of groups) and in the ‘paper’format in order to optimally understand a BPMN model.The results also show that the model reader’s businessprocess modeling competency is an important factor ofprocess model comprehension

Context-aware modeling for knowledge-intensive medicinal product development processes

Context-Aware Modeling for Knowledge-intensive Medicinal Product Development Processe

A visual analysis of the process of process modeling

The construction of business process models has become an important requisite in the analysis and optimization of processes. The success of the analysis and optimization efforts heavily depends on the quality of the models. Therefore, a research domain emerged that studies the process of process modeling. This paper contributes to this research by presenting a way of visualizing the different steps a modeler undertakes to construct a process model, in a so-called process of process modeling Chart. The graphical representation lowers the cognitive efforts to discover properties of the modeling process, which facilitates the research and the development of theory, training and tool support for improving model quality. The paper contains an extensive overview of applications of the tool that demonstrate its usefulness for research and practice and discusses the observations from the visualization in relation to other work. The visualization was evaluated through a qualitative study that confirmed its usefulness and added value compared to the Dotted Chart on which the visualization was inspired