The Process

of Process Modeling

Hajo Reijers

PAGE 2

Jakob Pinggera

Stefan Zugal

Barbara Weber

Dirk Fahland

Hajo Reijers

Irene Vanderfeesten

Matthias Weidlich

Jan Mendling

Pnina Soffer

Jan Claes

Geert Poels

PAGE 3

Process Models in BPM

common

understanding

identify problems in

the business process

discover opportunities

for improvement execute

Error rates between 10% and 50% in industrial process

model collections (Mendling 2009, Fahland et al. 2009, Mendling et al. 2008)

impedes comprehensibility and maintainability

of process models (Mendling 2008, Weber & Reichert 2008, Weber et al. 2011)

• Non intention-revealing or inconsistent naming (Mendling et al. 2010)

• Redundant process fragments (Hallerbach et al. 2010)

• Large and unnecessarily complex process models (Soto et al. 2008)

Quality Problems

PAGE 4

Elicitation Formalization

Process Model Development Lifecycle

PAGE 5

Challenges

Elicitation Formalization

Good communication

between stakeholders

and effective

negotiation processes

Significant process

modeling skills and

good modeling

support

PAGE 6

1. Learn from process modelers

2. Investigate tool/notation impact on modeling

3. Support modeling:

• modeling methodology

• modeling notation

• modeling tools

Overall objective: Improve Formalization

PAGE 7

Elicitation Formalization

Analyze Formalization as a Process

Elicitation

Formalization

Comprehension

Modeling Reconciliation

PAGE 8

process modeling

• motivation

• elicitation + formalization

capture as a process

• conceptual idea

• what does it look like

insights:

• dialogue document

• modeling styles

• eye-tracking

PAGE 9

Outline

iterative, highly flexible process

depends on individual modeler

3 successive phases

Process of Process Modeling (PPM)

Comprehension

Modeling Reconciliation

PAGE 10

same product (process model)

What does the PPM look like?

PAGE 11

same product (process model)

record modeling steps

What does the PPM look like?

PAGE 12

PAGE 13

Model recording

CREATE_START_EVENT

CREATE_ACTIVITY CREATE_EDGE

CREATE_XOR_GATEWAY

CREATE_AND_GATEWAY

MOVE_ACTIVITY

CREATE_EDGE_BENDPOINT NAME_EDGE

RENAME_ACTIVITY

DELETE_ACTIVITY

Cheetah Experimental Platform: http://bpm.q-e.at/?page_id=56

classify modeling steps

accumulate in Modeling Phase Diagrams (PPMs)

What does the PPM look like?

PAGE 14

PAGE 15

Experiments

process modeling

• motivation

• elicitation + formalization

capture as a process

• conceptual idea

• what does it look like

some insights

• dialogue document

• attention fixation

• modeling styles

PAGE 16

Outline

DIALOGUE DOCUMENT

PAGE 17

PAGE 18

Dialogue document

P.J.M. Frederiks and Th.P. van der Weide: Information modeling: The process and the required

competencies of its participants. Data and Knowledge Engineering 58 (2006) 1, 4-20.

Dialogue document

Factor of interest: Organization of dialogue

document

Factor levels: Breadth-first, Depth-first, Random

Results: Correctness

Very similar

PAGE 20

Results: Modeling time

Breadth-first significantly quicker than random

Results: Accuracy

Random has a significant higher distance

Results – Dialogue document

Modeling is difficult

• High percentage of syntactical errors

Organization dialogue document:

• Limited effect on syntactical correctness

• Big effect on accuracy

Breadth first seems favorable:

• Modeling time lowest

• Modelers most closely follow dialogue document

PAGE 23

MODELING STYLES

PAGE 24

PAGE 25

Modeling styles

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Approach

Understandable

models

Non-understandable

models

J. Claes, I. Vanderfeesten, H.A. Reijers, J. Pinggera, M. Weidlich, S. Zugal, B. Weber, J. Mendling, G. Poels and D. Fahland.

Tying Process Model Quality to the Modeling Process: The Impact of Structuring, Movement, and Speed. Accepted to 10th

International Conference on Business Process Management (BPM 2012)

PAGE 27

Structured modeling

Creating blocks ‘as a whole’ (before moving on to

the creation of the rest of the model)

ACT

ACT

X X ACT

PAGE 28

Movement

PAGE 29

Speed

Structured modeling

Moves

Speed

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Test

maxSimulBlock understandability 0.028*

percNumBlockAsAWhole understandability 0.030*

avgMoveOnMovedElements understandability 0.049*

percNumElementsWithMoves understandability 0.648

totTime understandability 0.031*

totCreateTime understandability 0.014*

EYE-TRACKING

PAGE 31

PAGE 32

Eye-tracking

33

Modeler

creating a formal model is a process in itself

we record and measure this process of modeling

modeling is difficult

structure dialogue document has an impact

modeling styles differ – relation with model quality

in search of what makes modeling difficult

PAGE 34

Summary

good modelers model quickly

good modelers model structuredly

Take away

questions:

• can we improve the process of process modeling?

• can we develop effective modeling instructions?

• can we provide effective tool support?

PAGE 36

The future

X X

Questions?

PAGE 37

Hajo Reijers

h.a.reijers@tue.nl

http://www.reijers.com

Twitter: @MultumNonMulta

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