1. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 1 Assessing Business Process Modeling Languages Using a Generic Quality Framework Anna Gunhild Nysetvold* John Krogstie *, § IDI, NTNU * and SINTEF § Norway

2. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 2 Overview of presentation Quality of models and modeling languages Objectives of business process models Description of case - Vital Evaluation results Concluding remarks

3. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 3 Framework for quality of models

4. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 4 Quality of modeling languages

5. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 5 Different objectives of business process modeling Human-sense making and communication Computer-assisted analysis/simulation Business Process Management Gives the context for a traditional system development project Model deployment and activation : Through people guided by process 'maps', Automatically, as in most workflow engines. Interactively, where the computer and the users co-operate

6. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 6 Description of case-study environment Vital: One of Norway’s largest insurance companies Large number of life insurance and pension insurance customers Going from a functionally oriented architecture to a process/service oriented architecture Need to support complete business processes in the architecture Main usage area of process models: Context for system development (but human sense-making and communication is also important)

7. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 7 Approach to evaluation Identified main criteria based on Vital experiences and the quality framework approx. 70 requirements derived from the general framework, evaluated according to relevance to Vital 32 requirements found sufficiently relevant to use in the evaluation Identify short-list of languages to evaluate Evaluate languages based on identified criteria Analytically Empirically (based on modeling of cases using the same independent modeling tool (METIS)) Getting feedback from Vital on evaluations as we went along Evaluations on a 0-3 scale on each criteria

8. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 8 Short-list of languages BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notations) UML Activity diagrams EEML (Extended Enterprise Modeling Language)

9. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 9 BPMN - BPD

10. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 10 UML Activity diagrams

11. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 11 EEML

12. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 12 Overall results No.Requirement descriptionUML ADBPMNEEML 1.1 The language should support the following concepts (a) processes, that must be possible to decompose (b) activities (c) actors/roles (d) decision points (e) flow between activities, tasks and decision points 333 1.2 The language should support (a) system resources (b) states 223 1.3Basic control patterns333 1.4Advanced branching and synchronization patterns00,53 1.5Structural patterns01,5 1.6Patterns involving multiple instances1,5 2 1.7State based flow patterns112 1.8Cancellation patterns333 1.9Extension mechanisms to fit the domain311 1.10Elements in the process model must be possible to link to a data/information model313 1.11Hierarchical models333 22,520,527,5

13. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 13 2.1The language must be easy to learn, preferably being based on a language already being used in the organization 231 2.2Appropriate level of abstraction333 2.3Concepts should be named similarly as it is in the domain132 2.4Intuitive representation to the stakeholders222 2.5Good guidelines for the use of the language221 4.1Easy diff. between different concepts332 4.2Number of concepts should be reasonable331 4.3The language should be flexible in precision123 4.4Easy to differentiate between the different symbols in the language221 4.5The language must be consistent.333 4.6One should strive for graphical simplicity321 4.7Grouping of related statements112 5.1The language should have a formal syntax333 5.2Formal semantics132 5.3Generate BPEL –documents from the model230 5.4Represent web-services in the model131 5.5Automatic execution and testing132 6.1The language must be supported by available tools.331 6.2Traceability between the process model and any automated process support system231 6.3Models that can improvement the quality of the process.111 6.4The language should support the development of models that help in the follow-up of separate cases 112 Sum63,572,563,5 Sum without technical actor appropriateness55.557,555,5 Sum without participant language knowledge appropriateness53,559,553,5

14. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 14 Concluding remarks The framework found useful after specializing it to specific goals of the organization Overly simplistic valuation ? Weighting of importance (base more on metrics for e.g. complexity) Weighting between expressiveness, learnability, comprehension, technical and organizational appropriateness On later uses use several valuation schemes in parallel Also include evaluation of the meta-model and notation guides as models Useful to first focus on the language, but language quality is only a mean to achieve model quality. Through including organizational appropriateness, tool-support and appropriate techniques to support the development of high-quality models on all levels is partly included also at this level

15. ICT EMMSAD’05 13/6-2005 15 Assessing Business Process Modeling Languages Using a Generic Quality Framework Anna Gunhild Nysetvold* John Krogstie *, § IDI, NTNU * and SINTEF § Norway