Modeling Styles in Business Process Modeling

TL;DR

This study identifies three distinct styles in business process modeling by analyzing student interactions, contributing to a deeper understanding of modeling processes to improve model quality.

Contribution

It introduces a novel clustering approach to categorize modeling styles based on interaction data, revealing significant differences among styles.

Findings

Three distinct modeling styles identified

Significant differences in modeling characteristics

Foundation for tailored modeling support

Abstract

Research on quality issues of business process models has recently begun to explore the process of creating process models. As a consequence, the question arises whether different ways of creating process models exist. In this vein, we observed 115 students engaged in the act of modeling, recording all their interactions with the modeling environment using a specialized tool. The recordings of process modeling were subsequently clustered. Results presented in this paper suggest the existence of three distinct modeling styles, exhibiting significantly different characteristics. We believe that this finding constitutes another building block toward a more comprehensive understanding of the process of process modeling that will ultimately enable us to support modelers in creating better business process models.