We Still Don’t Know How Much BPMN Is Enough, But We Are Getting Closer

Abstract

Process models expressed in BPMN typically rely on a small subset of all available symbols. In our 2008 study, we examined the composition of these subsets, and found that the distribution of BPMN symbols in practice closely resembles the frequency distribution of words in natural language. We offered some suggestions based on our findings, how to make the use of BPMN more manageable and also outlined ideas for further development of BPMN. Since this paper was published it has provoked spirited debate in the BPM practitioner community, prompted the definition of a modeling standard in US government, and helped shape the next generation of the BPMN standard. Motivation and Genesis of PaperProcess modeling is not a new phenomenon, but the notations for mapping out process diagrams seem to be in constant state of flux. Established notations are applied, refined, evolve, and are replaced with new notations. Like natural languages, process representations and their associated grammars seem to evolve. The Business Process Model & Notation (BPMN) has evolved since its inception in 2001 and has found its fair share of adopters in both modeling tool vendors, and industrial applications. Since the BPMN notation contains a large number of constructs (compared to older process notations such as Flow Charts, Petri Nets, M. zur Muehlen ( )

Portability of Process-Aware and Service-Oriented Software : Evidence and Metrics

“…Finally, 12% of the process models, a total of 327, are explicitly marked as executable, i.e., the isExecutable flag of the process element is set to true. In an influential paper [202], which also had impact on the current version of BPMN [216], zur Muehlen and Recker analyzed the usage of BPMN elements in process models and found that only a very small subset of the existing elements were actually used in practice. As this information can be used to refine the computation of our metrics, we reproduced this analysis for the process models at hand.…”

A metamodel to integrate business processes time perspective in BPMN 2.0

“…BPMN provides business professionals with a notation that not only allows internal communication of business procedures, but also business-IT alignment and collaboration among business partners. However, some works, such as [67][68][69][70] , conclude that most real models only handle a reduced set of symbols, due to the large number of artifacts in BPMN 2.0 and training cost to the average non-expert users. Zur Muehlen and Recker define three BPMN conformance levels [68] : Descriptive for simple, flowchart-like diagrams; Analytic for more sophisticated models that include event handling and messaging; and Common Executable with a focus on the model attributes that a Business Process Management System would expect.…”