Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing 71 SeriesEditors WilvanderAalst EindhovenTechnicalUniversity,TheNetherlands JohnMylopoulos UniversityofTrento,Italy MichaelRosemann QueenslandUniversityofTechnology,Brisbane,Qld,Australia MichaelJ.Shaw UniversityofIllinois,Urbana-Champaign,IL,USA ClemensSzyperski MicrosoftResearch,Redmond,WA,USA Jan Recker Evaluations of Process Modeling Grammars Ontological, Qualitative and QuantitativeAnalyses Using the Example of BPMN 1 3 Author JanRecker QueenslandUniversityofTechnology 126MargaretStreet,BrisbaneQLD4000,Australia E-mail:[email protected] ISSN1865-1348 e-ISSN1865-1356 ISBN978-3-642-18359-1 e-ISBN978-3-642-18360-7 DOI10.1007/978-3-642-18360-7 SpringerHeidelbergDordrechtLondonNewYork LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2010942581 ACMComputingClassification(1998):J.1,H.3.5,H.4.1,K.4.3 ©Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2011 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.Allrightsarereserved,whetherthewholeorpartofthematerialis concerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,re-useofillustrations,recitation,broadcasting, reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherway,andstorageindatabanks.Duplicationofthispublication orpartsthereofispermittedonlyundertheprovisionsoftheGermanCopyrightLawofSeptember9,1965, initscurrentversion,andpermissionforusemustalwaysbeobtainedfromSpringer.Violationsareliable toprosecutionundertheGermanCopyrightLaw. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,etc.inthispublicationdoesnotimply, evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevantprotectivelaws andregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Typesetting:Camera-readybyauthor,dataconversionbyScientificPublishingServices,Chennai,India Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com) To Laura and my family Foreword Business processes have emerged as a well-respected variable in the design of successful corporations. However, unlike other key managerial variables such as products and services, customers and employees, physical or digital assets (e.g., data, information), the conceptualization and management of business processes are in many respects in their infancy. One of the issues in this context is the appropriate, consistent, valid and reliable description of business processes by means of business process modeling. This book explores on an extraordinary high level of conceptualization and scientific rigor the current capabilities of the most prominent process modeling grammar BPMN. In particular, it aims to explain and predict how process analysts arrive at an opinion about the quality of a process modeling grammar, and thereby ultimately why they would continue working with the grammar. An established theory of ontological expressiveness provides the foundation and sensitizing device for the identification of a number of issues with the BPMN grammar. Jan Recker set out to empirically test these issues via a set of 19 interviews as well as a thoroughly designed survey instrument. The subsequent consolidation of over 500 responses of process modeling professionals does not only provide the study outcomes with high statistical significance, but also clearly demonstrates the great interest in this type of research. Theories of technology acceptance and continued usage allow linking the outcomes of the ontological analysis with predictions about how the identified and confirmed issues with the modeling grammar impact important usage beliefs, which ultimately inform the ongoing use of the grammar. As the main research outcome, this leads to a new, comprehensive and tested theory that for the first time integrates design features of a process modeling grammar with its likely impact on user behavior. Beyond its tremendous academic contribution to the domain of process modeling, this book is also a benchmark study for scientific innovation that can be derived from the creative and well-executed integration of two large, but so far independent, theories. The research approach described by Jan Recker is hopefully inspirational for many researchers as it convincingly shows the magnitude of outcomes that can be derived from such large-scale theory integration. I am confident that this book will leave its mark on the future development of process modeling in two ways. First, the identified and confirmed issues with the current process modeling grammar, and their impact on ease of use and usefulness, will help to channel the attention of the community developing and adopting BPMN toward topics of high relevance. This will facilitate a demand- driven approach to the future design of process modeling standards and in return increase the significance of the related contributions. Second, and even more VIII Foreword important, I trust that the benefits of the rigorous analyses demonstrated in this book will encourage the related academic and professional communities to put an increased emphasis on solid foundations for their future work. Jan Recker delivers with this book an impressive example of his outstanding talent as an information systems researcher who can conduct sound scientific work on topics of high practical relevance. His doctoral dissertation work that is captured within this book will for many years be a recommended reference thesis on how to design and execute theory-guided and empirically informed research of world-class standard. November 2010 Michael Rosemann Preface This book is an extended and revised version of my dissertation “Understanding Process Modeling Grammar Continuance: A Study of the Consequences of Representational Capabilities,” which I submitted to the Queensland University of Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in April 2008. The doctoral thesis was honored with the ACPHIS Information Systems Doctoral Thesis Award 2008, given to the best doctoral dissertation in information systems within the Australasian region. The thesis was further commended as runner-up to the ICIS 2008 ACM SIGMIS Doctoral Dissertation Award, the global dissertation competition in the information systems field. This book consolidates the main findings from the doctoral dissertation work, and enhances it with several related, complementary research findings I established between 2005 and 2009 on the ways to evaluate the quality of business process modeling grammars. These studies together with the work that found its way into my doctoral dissertation provide a comprehensive and contextualized overview about the quality of process modeling grammars and the approaches that can be used to evaluate such quality. Abstract The graphical modeling of processes is of growing popularity and high relevance to organizations that seek to document, analyze and improve their business operations. To model processes, analysts use so-called process modeling grammars that provide them with graphical constructs and grammatical rules, and therefore define how business processes can be modeled. This book investigates the notion of the quality of business process modeling grammars. It focuses on three approaches that incorporate established theoretical frameworks as well as empirical methods, namely, ontological analysis, qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. The three presented evaluation approaches are applied to the case of the Business Process Modeling Notation, a widely used business process modeling grammar and the current industry standard for process modeling. Through the application, first, ontological shortcomings of process modeling grammars are revealed; second, it is shown how these shortcomings manifest in actual process modeling practice; and third, it is shown how such shortcomings influence usage behaviors by process modeling practitioners. Contributions This book presents contributions to the scholarly areas of process modeling and model quality research on at least four accounts.