Abstract
In this paper, we examine the design of business process diagrams in contexts where novice analysts only have basic design tools such as paper and pencils available, and little to no understanding of formalized modeling approaches. Based on a quasi-experimental study with 89 BPM students, we identify five distinct process design archetypes ranging from textual to hybrid, and graphical representation forms. We also examine the quality of the designs and identify which representation formats enable an analyst to articulate business rules, states, events, activities, temporal and geospatial information in a process model. We found that the quality of the process designs decreases with the increased use of graphics and that hybrid designs featuring appropriate text labels and abstract graphical forms are well-suited to describe business processes. Our research has implications for practical process design work in industry as well as for academic curricula on process design.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Davies, I., Green, P., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M., Gallo, S.: How do Practitioners Use Conceptual Modeling in Practice? Data & Knowledge Engineering 58, 358–380 (2006)
Nickerson, J.V., Corter, J.E., Tversky, B., Zahner, D., Rho, Y.J.: The Spatial Nature of Thought. In: Boland, R.J., Limayem, M., Pentland, B.T. (eds.) Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Information Systems. Association for Information Systems, Paris, France (2008)
BPMI.org, OMG: Business Process Modeling Notation Specification. Final Adopted Specification. Object Management Group (2006), http://www.bpmn.org
Grosskopf, A., Edelman, J., Weske, M.: Tangible Business Process Modeling - Methodology and Experiment Design. In: Mutschler, B., Recker, J., Wieringa, R. (eds.) Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Empirical Research in Business Process Management. LNBIP, vol. 1. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
Rosemann, M.: Potential Pitfalls of Process Modeling: Part A. Business Process Management Journal 12, 249–254 (2006)
Edelman, J., Grosskopf, A., Weske, M.: Tangible Business Process Modeling: A New Approach. In: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Engineering Design. Stanford University, Stanford (2009)
Do, E.Y.-L., Gross, M.D., Neiman, B., Zimring, C.: Intentions in and Relations Among Design Drawings. Design Studies 21, 483–503 (2000)
Eisentraut, R., Günther, J.: Individual Styles of Problem Solving and their Relation to Representations in the Design Process. Design Studies 18, 369–383 (1997)
Prats, M., Lim, S., Jowers, I., Garner, S.W., Chase, S.: Transforming Shape in Design: Observations from Studies of Sketching. Design Studies 30, 503–520 (2009)
Simon, H.A.: The Sciences of the Artificial, 3rd edn. MIT Press, Cambridge (1996)
Mendling, J., Reijers, H.A., Recker, J.: Activity Labeling in Process Modeling: Empirical Insights and Recommendations. Information Systems 35, 467–482 (2010)
Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M., Green, P.: Business Process Modeling: A Comparative Analysis. Journal of the Association for Information Systems 10, 333–363 (2009)
Krogstie, J., Sindre, G., Jørgensen, H.D.: Process Models Representing Knowledge for Action: a Revised Quality Framework. European Journal of Information Systems 15, 91–102 (2006)
Yang, Y., Tan, Q., Xiao, Y.: Verifying Web Services Composition Based on Hierarchical Colored Petri Nets. In: Hahn, A., Abels, S., Haak, L. (eds.) Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Interoperability of Heterogeneous Information Systems, pp. 47–54. ACM, Bremen (2005)
Curtis, B., Kellner, M.I., Over, J.: Process Modeling. Communications of the ACM 35, 75–90 (1992)
Boroditsky, L.: Metaphoric Structuring: Understanding Time through Spatial Metaphors. Cognition 75, 1–28 (2000)
Visser, W.: Design: One, but in Different Forms. Design Studies 30, 187–223 (2009)
Wang, W., Brooks, R.J.: Empirical Investigations of Conceptual Modeling and the Modeling Process. In: Henderson, S.G., Biller, B., Hsieh, M.-h. (eds.) Proceedings of the 39th Conference on Winter Simulation, pp. 762–770. IEEE, Washinton (2007)
Larkin, J.H., Simon, H.A.: Why a Diagram Is (Sometimes) Worth Ten Thousand Words. Cognitive Science 11, 65–100 (1987)
Koning, H., Dormann, C., van Vliet, H.: Practical Guidelines for the Readability of IT-architecture Diagrams. In: Haramundanis, K., Priestley, M. (eds.) Proceedings of the 20th Annual International Conference on Computer Documentation, pp. 90–99. ACM, Ontario (2002)
Purcell, A.T., Gero, J.S.: Drawings and the Design Process: A Review of Protocol Studies in Design and Other Disciplines and Related Research in Cognitive Psychology. Design Studies 19, 389–430 (1998)
Kavakli, M., Gero, J.S.: Sketching as Mental Imagery 22(4) (2001)
Ferreira, J., Noble, J., Biddle, R.: A Case for Iconic Icons. In: Piekarski, W. (ed.) Proceedings of the 7th Australasian User Interface Conference, pp. 64–100. CRPIT, Hobart (2006)
Rogers, Y.: Pictorial Representations of Abstract Concepts Relating to Human-Computer Interaction. ACM SIGCHI Bulletin 18, 43–44 (1986)
Mayer, R.E.: Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (2001)
Khatri, V., Vessey, I., Ramesh, V., Clay, P., Sung-Jin, P.: Understanding Conceptual Schemas: Exploring the Role of Application and IS Domain Knowledge. Information Systems Research 17, 81–99 (2006)
Moody, D.L.: The “Physics” of Notations: Toward a Scientific Basis for Constructing Visual Notations in Software Engineering. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering 35, 756–779 (2009)
Tabachnick, B.G., Fidell, L.S.: Using Multivariate Statistics, 4th edn. Allyn & Bacon, Boston (2001)
Paivio, A.: Mental Representations: A Dual Coding Approach. Oxford University Press, New York (1990)
Mayer, R.E., Moreno, R.: Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning. Educational Psychologist 38, 43–51 (2003)
Kavlaki, E., Loucopoulos, P.: Experiences With Goal-Oriented Modeling of Organizational Change. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics - Part C 36, 221–235 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Recker, J., Safrudin, N., Rosemann, M. (2010). How Novices Model Business Processes . In: Hull, R., Mendling, J., Tai, S. (eds) Business Process Management. BPM 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6336. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15618-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15618-2_5
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15617-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15618-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)