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A Characterisation of Ambiguity in BPM

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Conceptual Modeling (ER 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 14320))

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Abstract

Business Process Management is concerned with process-related artefacts such as informal specifications, formal models, and event logs. Often, these process-related artefacts may be affected by ambiguity, which may lead to misunderstandings, modelling errors, non-conformance, and incorrect interpretations. To date, a comprehensive and systematic analysis of ambiguity in process-related artefacts is still missing. Here, following a systematic development process with strict adherence to established guidelines, we propose a taxonomy of ambiguity, identifying a set of concrete ambiguity types related to these process-related artefacts. The proposed taxonomy and ambiguity types help to detect the presence of ambiguity in process-related artefacts, paving the road for improved processes. We validate the taxonomy with external process experts.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ambiguity.

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Acknowledgement

This work has received funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation under Grant No. IZSTZ0_208497 (ProAmbitIon project). The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and the evaluation participants.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, University of St.Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Marco Franceschetti, Ronny Seiger & Barbara Weber

  2. Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Hugo A. López & Andrea Burattin

  3. Department of Computer Science, Tecnológico de Monterrey, Puebla, Mexico

    Luciano García-Bañuelos

Authors
  1. Marco Franceschetti
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  2. Ronny Seiger
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  3. Hugo A. López
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  4. Andrea Burattin
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  5. Luciano García-Bañuelos
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  6. Barbara Weber
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Marco Franceschetti .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil

    João Paulo A. Almeida

  2. Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    José Borbinha

  3. University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands

    Giancarlo Guizzardi

  4. University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Sebastian Link

  5. Stockholm University, Kista, Sweden

    Jelena Zdravkovic

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Franceschetti, M., Seiger, R., López, H.A., Burattin, A., García-Bañuelos, L., Weber, B. (2023). A Characterisation of Ambiguity in BPM. In: Almeida, J.P.A., Borbinha, J., Guizzardi, G., Link, S., Zdravkovic, J. (eds) Conceptual Modeling. ER 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14320. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47262-6_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47262-6_15

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