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Analysis of Most Common Process Modelling Mistakes in BPMN Process Models
Analysis of Most Common Process Modelling Mistakes in BPMN Process Models
Analysis of Most Common Process Modelling Mistakes in BPMN Process Models
Introduction
o What is Business Process Management & Modelling
o A little bit of history
o Similar work
Research method
Findings – process model antipatterns
Conclusion s
Discussion
1 van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M. and Weske, M.: "Business Process
Management: A Survey", in Business Process Management, Proceedings of the First
International Conference. Springer Verlag, 2003. Business process management / business
process lifecycle What is (Business) Process modelling ?
EPC ,
ARIS ,
UML Activity diagrams ,
OPM – Object Process Methodology ,
BPMN – Business Process Modelling notation
A quick introduction to BPMN notation (1/2) Atomic activity – task Looping activity Ad-hoc
process Looping ad-hoc process Process (hidden details) Looping process (hidden details)
Process with details Branching (parallel execution) Data-based OR-decision Event -based
OR-decision Merging A quick introduction to BPMN notation (2/2) events gateways pools
and messages A little bit of history
BPMN notation has been taught since 2001 (University of Maribor, Faculty of electrical
engineering and computer science)
BSc. Students of Information Systems, 8 th semester “ Information processing organization and
management” practical lectures
The aim: (business) processes modeling , software standards, software projects organisation
The modeling tool : Modified Microsoft Visio (‘’in-house’ symbols stencil)
Similar work
Project ‘anti-pattern’
o = a pitfall, or, set of classes of commonly-reinvented bad solutions to problems
o = commonly repeated bad practices
workflow patterns
o control flow patterns, resource patterns, data patterns and exception handling patterns
The problem
BPMN does not prevent us to design bad process models, including syntactical, semantic and
pragmatically errors.
P oor quality of process models can cause poor quality software requirements resulting in a
poor information system .
Research method
Research question: What are the most common mistakes when modelling business process
diagrams using BPMN notation?
a multiple case study research
Analysis of t he process models ( designed by students ) from 2002 to 2007 by three
independent persons
Extraction & classification of most common mistakes -> process anti-pattern
Syntactical, semantic and pragmatic mistakes
Findings
Pattern 1. Activities in one pool are not connected Pattern 2. Process does not contain a start
event Pattern 3. Process does not contain an end event Pattern 4. Sequence flow crosses
process boundary Pattern 5. Sequence flow crosses pool boundary Pattern 6. Gateway
receives, evaluates or sends a message Pattern 7. Intermediate events are placed on the edge
of the pool Pattern 8. Hanging intermediate events or activities Pattern 9. Each lane in the pool
contains start event Pattern 10. Incorrect use of time events Solution: the meaning! Pattern 11.
Sequence and message event represent data flow Pattern 12. Event is used as a message flow
source Pattern 13. Improper use of flow elements Pattern 14. Starting timer placed instead of
intermediate timer Pattern 15. Exception flow is not connected to the exception Frequencies of
the anti-patterns appearance Exception is modelled, but not connected Process does not
contain a end event Sequence flow crosses process boundary Hanging intermediate events
or activities Starting timer placed instead of intermediate timer Conclusions