Universität zu Köln

zur Muehlen, Michael and Recker, Jan C. ORCID: 0000-0002-2072-5792 (2008). How Much Language is Enough? Theoretical and Practical Use of the Business Process Modeling Notation. In: Advanced information systems engineering : 20th international conference ; proceedings / CAiSE 2008, Montpellier, France, June 16 - 20, 2008., pp. 465-479. Berlin: Springer. ISBN 978-3-540-69534-9

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Abstract

Graphical models of business processes are used for analysis, design, and implementation of these processes and their supporting information systems. The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is an increasingly important industry standard for the graphical representation of processes. BPMN offers a wide range of modeling constructs, significantly more than other popular languages. However, it would appear that not all of these constructs are equally important in practice. Business analysts frequently use arbitrary subsets of BPMN. In this paper we investigate what these subsets are, and how they differ between academic, consulting, and general use of the language. We analyzed 120 BPMN diagrams using mathematical and statistical techniques. Our findings indicate that BPMN is used in groups of several, well-defined con-struct clusters, but less than 20% of its vocabulary is regularly used and some constructs did not occur in any of the models we analyzed. While the average model contains just 9 different BPMN constructs, models of this complexity have typically just 4-5 constructs in common, which means that only a small agreed subset of BPMN has emerged. Our findings have implications for the entire ecosystems of analysts and modelers in that they provide guidance on how to reduce language complexity, which should increase the ease and speed of process modeling.

Item Type:	Book Section, Proceedings Item or annotation in a legal commentary
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code zur Muehlen, Michael UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Recker, Jan C. UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0002-2072-5792 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-88456
DOI:	10.1007/978-3-540-69534-9_35
Title of Book:	Advanced information systems engineering : 20th international conference ; proceedings / CAiSE 2008, Montpellier, France, June 16 - 20, 2008.
Journal or Publication Title:	Advanced Information Systems Engineering (LNCS)
Series Name:	Lecture notes in computer science
Volume:	5074
Page Range:	pp. 465-479
Number of Pages:	588
Date:	2008
Publisher:	Springer
Place of Publication:	Berlin
ISBN:	978-3-540-69534-9
Language:	English
Faculty:	Faculty of Management, Economy and Social Sciences
Divisions:	Weitere Institute, Arbeits- und Forschungsgruppen > Cologne Institute for Information Systems (CIIS) Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences > Business Administration > Information Systems > Chair for Information Systems and Systems Development
Subjects:	Data processing Computer science Management and auxiliary services
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language BPMN English Language Analysis English Process Modeling English
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/8845