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How Novices Model Business Processes

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Business Process Management (BPM 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 6336))

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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.

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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

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  • 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)

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