How Novices and Experts Understand Hierarchies in Business Process Modeling

2023 | International Conference on Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Stark, Jeannette; Neubauer, Maria; Greiffenberg, Steffen

Abstract: Conceptual models are essential for successful IT implementation, as they conci ... Expand

Abstract: Conceptual models are essential for successful IT implementation, as they concisely represent the system's component structures, behavior, and relationships. However, for conceptual models to fully realize their potential, they must be understood. To this end, hierarchy has been employed in business process modeling to enhance understanding of complex models. Prior research has proposed a two-component framework to explain the effects of hierarchy on understanding. Drawing on empirical data, this work extends this framework by investigating the influence of expertise on the understanding of hierarchical business process models. Our findings indicate that experts and novices benefit from hiding task-irrelevant information in subprocesses, with experts benefiting significantly more than novices. Additionally, experts profit more from recognizing familiar patterns in subprocesses than novices. Based on our results, we propose two principles for designing hierarchy and suggest future research avenues. Collapse

Topics: business process management

Methods: business process modeling experiment Student's t-test parametric test design science

Theories: cognitive fit theory

Language and User Requirements for Business Process Simulation – A Systematic Literature Review

2022 | Americas Conference on Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Weber, Niklas; Rosenthal, Kristina

Abstract: Simulating a business process aims at analyzing the process's dynamic behavior ... Expand

Abstract: Simulating a business process aims at analyzing the process's dynamic behavior without having to execute the process. In research and practice of Business Process Management, simulating business processes has been a continuing focus since the 1990s -widely acknowledged as essential technique for quantitative process analysis. Despite its relevance, a differentiated understanding of requirements towards process modeling languages for creating simulation models and user requirements for simulation approaches and tools is missing at present. Based on a systematic and purposeful sampling of prior work combining different search strategies, the present study compiles and synthesizes 113 prior research contributions on business process simulation. Categorizing 56 language and user requirements results in an organizing overview that informs future design research on simulation approaches and tools that benefit (prospective) users of BPS. Collapse

Topics: database system user requirement business process management knowledge base

Methods: simulation literature study business process modeling language modeling language agent based simulation

A Technology-Specific Modeling Method for Data ETL Processes

2021 | Americas Conference on Information Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Deme, Andrea; Buchmann, Robert

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to establish the notion of "technology-specific model ... Expand

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to establish the notion of "technology-specific modeling method" instantiated by a showcase example that was realized as a Design Science artifact, within the Agile Modeling Method Engineering framework, considering a particular technological context and technology-dependent purpose -the management of ETL (extract-transform-load) processes and their interoperability with an in-house ETL platform running in an organization that deals with heavy data management and orchestration tasks. With the term "technology-specific", we refer to a level of specificity that does not stem from concepts pertaining to the business sector or goals, but from technological abstractions already available in the model-driven environment where models are intended to be used. Besides reporting on the engineering details of a showcase modeling language, the paper also draws theoretical reflections on the notion of "technology-specific modeling" and what distinguishes it from the traditional domainspecific class of modeling languages. Collapse

Topics: extract transform load process data management systems development service oriented architecture data warehouse

Methods: design science conceptual modelling modeling language metamodel design artifact

Decisions for information or information for decisions? Optimizing information gathering in decision-intensive processes

2021 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: Voorberg, S.; Eshuis, R.; van Jaarsveld, W.; van Houtum, G.J.

Abstract: Decision-intensive business processes are performed by decision makers who gathe ... Expand

Abstract: Decision-intensive business processes are performed by decision makers who gather different pieces of infor­ mation to reach the process objective: a final decision of high quality, for instance, the final price of a quote or the diagnosis of a failure of a hightech machine, as a result of an information-gathering process with minimum costs and efforts. Gathering all possible pieces of information results in high quality decisions, but also yields high costs and efforts. Therefore, decision makers require decision support to determine which information to gather to make the best final decision. This paper introduces an approach that supports a decision maker in the continuous trade-off between the effective acquisition of more information and cost-efficient decision making. The approach uses a well-defined modeling notation for decision-intensive processes, CMMN, and links it to a standard optimization technique, Markov Decision Processes. The approach calculates an optimal informationgathering solution, such that the expected result of the main decision minus the process cost for collecting in­ formation is optimized. The approach uses the solution to configure a run-time recommendation tool for the decision maker. The approach is flexible and allows that a decision maker ignores the advice; it then continues to offer recommendations in the subsequent states. We show the feasibility and effectiveness of our approach on a real-world quote process. Collapse

Topics: decision making decision support Python declarative language business process management

Methods: decision tree classification computational algorithm design science Markov decision process business process modeling

Business Process Simulation on Procedural Graphical Process Models

2021 | Business & Information Systems Engineering | Citations: 0

Authors: Rosenthal, Kristina; Ternes, Benjamin; Strecker, Stefan

Abstract: Business process simulation marks an essential technique for analyzing business ... Expand

Abstract: Business process simulation marks an essential technique for analyzing business processes and for reasoning about process improvement. With first contributions dating back to the mid-1990s, computerized business process simulation has been a continuing research focus and is widely acknowledged as foundational to Business Process Management research and practice. Reviewing contributions to the field published between 1990 and 2018, the authors assess the state of research on business process simulation and develop an organizing overview of research contributions discussing simulation approaches, tool support, results visualization, use context, application purposes, and adoption barriers. Findings inform future research on business process simulation by discussing paths for behavioral research on the use of business process simulation, user requirements, and adoption barriers as well as complementary paths for design science research addressing limitations of present approaches and simulation tool support. Collapse

Topics: business process management system support database system business process management system user requirement

Methods: simulation modeling language business process modeling design science business process model and notation

Implementation of Aspect-oriented Business Process Models with Web Services

2020 | Business & Information Systems Engineering | Citations: 0

Authors: Jose, Hercules Sant Ana da Silva; Cappelli, Claudia; Santoro, Flavia Maria; Azevedo, Leonardo Guerreiro

Abstract: In software development, crosscutting concerns, such as security, audit, access ... Expand

Abstract: In software development, crosscutting concerns, such as security, audit, access control, authentication, logging, persistence, transaction, error handling etc. can be modularized using the aspect-oriented paradigm. In business process modeling, aspects have been used to reduce visualization complexity, increase reuse and improve model maintainability. There are techniques which address aspects in modeling and implementation phases of business process; however, these techniques adopt different semantic representations, hindering the integration of these phases into the BPM lifecycle. This work proposes an architecture for service discovery capable of selecting web services that implement crosscutting concerns and meet the goals established in the aspect modeling phase, executing them accordingly with a prioritization. A proof of concept to analyze the proposed architecture and generated artifacts was performed. Afterwards, the proposal was evaluated by means of an experiment. The results suggest that the definition of an operational goal enables the business specialists to concentrate on the modeling of the aspect without necessarily concerning its implementation, since a proper option for implementation is discovered during the execution of the process. Collapse

Topics: web service knowledge representation business process management virtualization technology source code

Methods: experiment design artifact ontological modelling simulation business process modeling

Design Principles for Comprehensible Process Discovery in Process Mining

2020 | European Conference On Information Systems | Citations: 1

Authors: Stierle, Matthias; Zilker, Sandra; Dunzer, Sebastian; Tenscher, Johannes; Karagegova, Gergana

Abstract: Spaghetti-like" process models discovered through process mining are challengin ... Expand

Abstract: Spaghetti-like" process models discovered through process mining are challenging to comprehend, especially, for inexperienced users. But, at the same time, they contain potential insights for decisionmakers. Designing process discovery techniques that work well in both aspects -being comprehensible and providing valuable information, for various data sets -is a challenging task in process mining. Therefore, we adopt metrics from various disciplines such as information theory, business process modelling, process mining, graph aesthetics, and cognitive load theory to define design principles for process discovery techniques in regards to model characteristics and visual layout principles. Each of the design principles includes a metric and reference value to ensure their testability and to provide quantitative orientation to designers. To assure that model comprehensibility does not come at the cost of losing essential information, we introduce an entropy-based measure as a boundary condition that expresses the amount of information a model encodes. We assess the effectiveness of the design principles in terms of their applicability in an experimental evaluation with synthetic and real-world event log data. = lowest node and path coverage, 2 = highest node, lowest path coverage, 3 = lowest node, highest path coverage, 4 = highest node and path coverage Collapse

Topics: process mining decision making problem solving business process management logistics management

Methods: business process modeling design principle computational algorithm event log machine learning

Theories: cognitive load theory information theory graph theory mathematical theory of communication

Partial order resolution of event logs for process conformance checking

2020 | Decision Support Systems | Citations: 0

Authors: van der Aa, Han; Leopold, Henrik; Weidlich, Matthias

Abstract: While supporting the execution of business processes, information systems record ... Expand

Abstract: While supporting the execution of business processes, information systems record event logs. Conformance checking relies on these logs to analyze whether the recorded behavior of a process conforms to the behavior of a normative specification. A key assumption of existing conformance checking techniques, however, is that all events are associated with timestamps that allow to infer a total order of events per process instance. Unfortunately, this assumption is often violated in practice. Due to synchronization issues, manual event recordings, or data corruption, events are only partially ordered. In this paper, we put forward the problem of partial order resolution of event logs to close this gap. It refers to the construction of a probability distribution over all possible total orders of events of an instance. To cope with the order uncertainty in real-world data, we present several estimators for this task, incorporating different notions of behavioral abstraction. Moreover, to reduce the runtime of conformance checking based on partial order resolution, we introduce an approximation method that comes with a bounded error in terms of accuracy. Our experiments with real-world and synthetic data reveal that our approach improves accuracy over the state-of-the-art considerably. Collapse

Topics: Java source code process mining open source data management

Methods: event log experiment business process modeling modeling language business process model and notation

An Open Platform for Modeling Method Conceptualization: The OMiLAB Digital Ecosystem

2019 | Communications of the Association for Information Systems | Citations: 4

Authors: Bork, Dominik; Buchmann, Robert Andrei; Karagiannis, Dimitri; Lee, Moonkun; Miron, Elena-Teodora

Abstract: This paper motivates, describes, demonstrates in use, and evaluates the Open Mod ... Expand

Abstract: This paper motivates, describes, demonstrates in use, and evaluates the Open Models Laboratory (OMiLAB)—an open digital ecosystem designed to help one conceptualize and operationalize conceptual modeling methods. The OMiLAB ecosystem, which a generalized understanding of “model value” motivates, targets research and education stakeholders who fulfill various roles in a modeling method's lifecycle. While we have many reports on novel modeling methods and tools for various domains, we lack knowledge on conceptualizing such methods via a full-fledged dedicated open ecosystem and a methodology that facilitates entry points for novices and an open innovation space for experienced stakeholders. This gap continues due to the lack of an open process and platform for 1) conducting research in the field of modeling method design, 2) developing agile modeling tools and model-driven digital products, and 3) experimenting with and disseminating such methods and related prototypes. OMiLAB incorporates principles, practices, procedures, tools, and services required to address the issues above since it focuses on being the operational deployment for a conceptualization and operationalization process built on several pillars: 1) a granularly defined “modeling method” concept whose building blocks one can customize for the domain of choice, 2) an “agile modeling method engineering” framework that helps one quickly prototype modeling tools, 3) a model-aware “digital product design lab”, and 4) dissemination channels for reaching a global community. In this paper, we demonstrate and evaluate the OMiLAB in research with two selected application cases for domain- and case-specific requirements. Besides these exemplary cases, OMiLAB has proven to effectively satisfy requirements that almost 50 modeling methods raise and, thus, to support researchers in designing novel modeling methods, developing tools, and disseminating outcomes. We also measured OMiLAB’s educational impact. Collapse

Topics: digital ecosystem digital product open innovation organizational context Zachman framework

Methods: conceptual modelling design science design artifact modeling language computational algorithm

Resolving Inconsistencies in Declarative Process Models based on Culpability Measurement

2019 | International Conference on Business Informatics | Citations: 0

Authors: Corea, Carl; Deisen, Matthias; Delfmann, Patrick

Abstract: Contrary to traditional process models, declarative process models define a set ... Expand

Abstract: Contrary to traditional process models, declarative process models define a set of declarative constraints to specify the behavior which a process should adhere to. In the scope of process mining, declarative process discovery aims to derive such constraint sets from event logs. Here, a problem for current discovery techniques is that of inconsistency. That is, dependent of certain event log characteristics, the derived constraint set may contain contradictory constraints. This in turn however makes the discovered model unusable, as contradictory constraints make it impossible to execute declarative process models, thus hampering previous process discovery efforts. In this work, we present an approach for resolving inconsistencies in declarative process models, based on methods from the scientific field of inconsistency measurement. We introduce our approach algorithm and evaluate its feasibility with data sets of the BPI Challenge 2017. Collapse

Topics: business process management Java process mining

Methods: computational algorithm business process modeling event log modeling language design science