scholarly journals The Influence of Business Process Representation on Performance of Different Task Types

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamzah Ritchi ◽  
Mieke Jans ◽  
Jan Mendling ◽  
Hajo A. Reijers

ABSTRACT The analysis of business processes is an integral part of audit methodology. In both auditing research and process modeling research, there is an ongoing debate on which representation format might be best suited to support analysis tasks. Most important in this context is the question of whether process models as visual representation might be superior to textual narratives. This paper investigates the affinity of different tasks with two process representational formats: textual narratives and visual diagrams (BPMN models). Our findings demonstrate that the representation format has an impact on task performance and that the direction of this impact depends upon the affinity of the tasks type with the representation format. This implies that auditors are best provided with different process representations, depending on the task they are performing. These findings have important implications for research on auditing tasks, and more broadly also for software engineering and information systems research.

Author(s):  
Evellin Cardoso ◽  
João Paulo A. Almeida ◽  
Renata S. S. Guizzardi ◽  
Giancarlo Guizzardi

While traditional approaches in business process modeling tend to focus on “how” the business processes are performed (adopting a behavioral description in which business processes are described in terms of procedural aspects), in goal-oriented business process modeling, the proposals strive to extend traditional business process methodologies by providing a dimension of intentionality to business processes. One of the key difficulties in enabling one to model goal-oriented processes concerns the identification or elicitation of goals. This paper reports on a case study conducted in a Brazilian hospital, which obtained several goal models represented in i*/Tropos, each of which correspond to a business process also modeled in the scope of the study. NFR catalogues were helpful in goal elicitation, uncovering goals that did not come up during previous interviews prior to these catalogues’ use.


2020 ◽  
pp. 464-478
Author(s):  
Loubna El Faquih ◽  
Mounia Fredj

In recent years, business process modeling has increasingly drawn the attention of enterprises. As a result of the wide use of business processes, redundancy problems have arisen and researchers introduced the variability management, in order to enhance the business process reuse. The most approach used in this context is the Configurable Process Model solution, which consists in representing the variable and the fixed parts together in a unique model. Due to the increasing number of variants, the configurable models become complex and incomprehensible, and their quality is therefore impacted. Most of research work is limited to the syntactic quality of process variants. The approach presented in this paper aims at providing a novel method towards syntactic verification and semantic validation of configurable process models based on ontology languages. We define validation rules for assessing the quality of configurable process models. An example in the e-healthcare domain illustrates the main steps of our approach.


2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 794-815 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinwei Zhu ◽  
Jan Recker ◽  
Guobin Zhu ◽  
Flávia Maria Santoro

Purpose – Context-awareness has emerged as an important principle in the design of flexible business processes. The goal of the research is to develop an approach to extend context-aware business process modeling toward location-awareness. The purpose of this paper is to identify and conceptualize location-dependencies in process modeling. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a pattern-based approach to identify location-dependency in process models. The authors design specifications for these patterns. The authors present illustrative examples and evaluate the identified patterns through a literature review of published process cases. Findings – This paper introduces location-awareness as a new perspective to extend context-awareness in BPM research, by introducing relevant location concepts such as location-awareness and location-dependencies. The authors identify five basic location-dependent control-flow patterns that can be captured in process models. And the authors identify location-dependencies in several existing case studies of business processes. Research limitations/implications – The authors focus exclusively on the control-flow perspective of process models. Further work needs to extend the research to address location-dependencies in process data or resources. Further empirical work is needed to explore determinants and consequences of the modeling of location-dependencies. Originality/value – As existing literature mostly focusses on the broad context of business process, location in process modeling still is treated as “second class citizen” in theory and in practice. This paper discusses the vital role of location-dependencies within business processes. The proposed five basic location-dependent control-flow patterns are novel and useful to explain location-dependency in business process models. They provide a conceptual basis for further exploration of location-awareness in the management of business processes.


Author(s):  
Azeem Lodhi ◽  
Veit Küppen ◽  
Gunter Saake

An Extension of BPMN Meta-model for Evaluation of Business ProcessesBusiness process modeling is used for better understanding and communication of company's processes. Mostly, business process modeling is discussed from the information system development perspective. Execution of a business process involves various factors (costs and time) which are important and should be represented in business process models. Controlling of business units uses post execution analysis for detection of failures for improvement. The process models conceived for information system development are not sufficient for post execution analysis. This paper focuses on the challenges of business process modeling in the post execution context. We provide a meta model for evaluation of a business process and discuss BPMN in this context. We also extend existing BPMN meta model for performance analysis of business processes. The proposed extensions are presented with the help of an example.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Ventura Martins ◽  
Marielba Zacarias

Current business process modeling methodologies offer little guidance regarding how to discover and maintain business process models aligned with their actual execution. The authors argue that business processes should emerge and evolve collaboratively within an organization. Considering this limitation, this paper presents an overview of some Web-based tools and explores their main functionalities. This study highlights the need of a bi-directional form of communication, between operational and process actors. The paper contributes with a new business process and practice authoring tool based on authors' vision for business process improvement.


2012 ◽  
Vol 201-202 ◽  
pp. 935-938
Author(s):  
Lei Chen ◽  
Hong Fei Zhan ◽  
Jun He Yu ◽  
Zhong Ren Jiang ◽  
Chen Jian Lei

Business processes existed in every stage of the product life cycle. A lot of knowledge resources were carried in the business processes. The main purpose of business process modeling was to manage knowledge resources. It laid the foundations for the allocation of knowledge resources. To solve the problems of uncertainty and complexity of the management of knowledge resources, this paper studied the modeling form of knowledge resource allocation oriented business process and discussed the integration mode of knowledge resource and the business process. After the modeling process, the business process models were described from business logic relation, scope, time, cost, standard, material resources, tool and human resource. The relating knowledge resource was also determined during the modeling process, which would be used for the allocation of knowledge resources.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Wiśniewski ◽  
Krzysztof Kluza ◽  
Edyta Kucharska ◽  
Antoni Ligęza

Business process models help to visualize processes of an organization. In enterprises, these processes are often specified in internal regulations, resolutions or other law acts of a company. Such descriptions, like task lists, have mostly form of enumerated lists or spreadsheets. In this paper, we present a mapping of process model elements into a spreadsheet representation. As a process model can be represented in various notations, this can be seen as an interoperability solution for process knowledge interchange between different representations. In presenting the details of the solution, we focus on the popular BPMN representation, which is a de facto standard for business process modeling. We present a method how to generate a BPMN process model from a spreadsheet-based representation. In contrast to the other existing approaches concerning spreadsheets, our method does not require explicit specification of gateways in the spreadsheet, but it takes advantage of nested list form. Such a spreadsheet can be created either manually or merged from the task list specifications provided by users.


Author(s):  
Jan Recker ◽  
Jan Mendling

Often, different process models are employed in different phases of the BPM life cycle, each providing a different approach for capturing business processes. Efforts have been undertaken to overcome the disintegration of process models by providing complementary standards for design and execution. However, this claim has not yet been fulfilled. A prominent example is the seemingly complementary nature of BPMN and BPEL. The mapping between these process modeling languages is still unsolved and poses challenges to practitioners and academics. This chapter discusses the problem of translating between process modeling languages. We argue that there is conceptual mismatch between modeling languages stemming from various perspectives of the business-process management life cycle that must be identified for seamless integration. While we focus on the popular case of BPMN vs. BPEL, our approach is generic and can be utilized as a guiding framework for identifying conceptual mismatch between other process modeling languages.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marielba Zacarias ◽  
Paula Ventura Martins

Current business process modeling methodologies offer little guidance regarding how to discover and maintain business process models aligned with their actual execution. This paper describes how to achieve this goal by uncovering, supervising and improving business process models based on actual work practices, using the Business Alignment Methodology (BAM). BAM aims at enabling business process modeling, supervision and improvement through the distinction of two dimensions; (1) business processes and (2) work practices. BAM encompasses three phases; (1) Business Process Discovery, (2) Business Process Supervision and (3) Business Process Assessment and Improvement. This paper illustrates the business discovery phase of BAM with a case study in a real organizational setting.


2020 ◽  
pp. 599-616
Author(s):  
Paula Ventura Martins ◽  
Marielba Zacarias

Current business process modeling methodologies offer little guidance regarding how to discover and maintain business process models aligned with their actual execution. The authors argue that business processes should emerge and evolve collaboratively within an organization. Considering this limitation, this paper presents an overview of some Web-based tools and explores their main functionalities. This study highlights the need of a bi-directional form of communication, between operational and process actors. The paper contributes with a new business process and practice authoring tool based on authors' vision for business process improvement.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document