Making sense of declarative process models: Common strategies and typical pitfalls

Cornelia Haisjackl, Stefan Zugal, Pnina Soffer, Irit Hadar, Manfred Reichert, Jakob Pinggera, Barbara Weber

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Declarative approaches to process modeling are regarded as well suited for highly volatile environments as they provide a high degree of flexibility. However, problems in understanding and maintaining declarative business process models impede often their usage. In particular, how declarative models are understood has not been investigated yet. This paper takes a first step toward addressing this question and reports on an exploratory study investigating how analysts make sense of declarative process models. We have handed out real-world declarative process models to subjects and asked them to describe the illustrated process. Our qualitative analysis shows that subjects tried to describe the processes in a sequential way although the models represent circumstantial information, namely, conditions that produce an outcome, rather than a sequence of activities. Finally, we observed difficulties with single building blocks and combinations of relations between activities.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEnterprise, Business-Process and Information Systems Modeling - 14th International Conference, BPMDS 2013, 18th International Conference, EMMSAD 2013, Held at CAiSE 2013, Proceedings
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages2-17
Number of pages16
ISBN (Print)9783642384837
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Event14th International Conference on Business Process Modeling, Development and Support, BPMDS 2013, and the 18th International Conference on Exploring Modeling Methods for Systems Analysis and Design, EMMSAD 2013, Held at CAiSE 2013 - Valencia, Spain
Duration: 17 Jun 201318 Jun 2013

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Volume147 LNBIP
ISSN (Print)1865-1348

Conference

Conference14th International Conference on Business Process Modeling, Development and Support, BPMDS 2013, and the 18th International Conference on Exploring Modeling Methods for Systems Analysis and Design, EMMSAD 2013, Held at CAiSE 2013
Country/TerritorySpain
CityValencia
Period17/06/1318/06/13

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research is supported by Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P23699-N23 and the BIT fellowship program.

Keywords

  • Declarative Process Models
  • Empirical Research
  • Understandability

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Control and Systems Engineering
  • Management Information Systems
  • Business and International Management
  • Information Systems
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Information Systems and Management

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