%0 Journal Article %1 muehlen08bpmn %A Muehlen, Michael %A Recker, Jan %D 2008 %J Advanced Information Systems Engineering %K research.conceptual research.bizInt.bpm %P 465--479 %T How Much Language Is Enough? Theoretical and Practical Use of the Business Process Modeling Notation %U http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69534-9_35 %X The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is an increasingly important industry standard for the graphical representationof business processes. BPMN offers a wide range of modeling constructs, significantly more than other popular languages. However,not all of these constructs are equally important in practice as business analysts frequently use arbitrary subsets of BPMN.In this paper we investigate what these subsets are, and how they differ between academic, consulting, and general use ofthe language. We analyzed 120 BPMN diagrams using mathematical and statistical techniques. Our findings indicate that BPMNis used in groups of several, well-defined construct clusters, but less than 20% of its vocabulary is regularly used and someconstructs did not occur in any of the models we analyzed. While the average model contains just 9 different BPMN constructs,models of this complexity have typically just 4-5 constructs in common, which means that only a small agreed subset of BPMNhas emerged. Our findings have implications for the entire ecosystems of analysts and modelers in that they provide guidanceon how to reduce language complexity, which should increase the ease and speed of process modeling.

@article{muehlen08bpmn, abstract = {The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is an increasingly important industry standard for the graphical representationof business processes. BPMN offers a wide range of modeling constructs, significantly more than other popular languages. However,not all of these constructs are equally important in practice as business analysts frequently use arbitrary subsets of BPMN.In this paper we investigate what these subsets are, and how they differ between academic, consulting, and general use ofthe language. We analyzed 120 BPMN diagrams using mathematical and statistical techniques. Our findings indicate that BPMNis used in groups of several, well-defined construct clusters, but less than 20% of its vocabulary is regularly used and someconstructs did not occur in any of the models we analyzed. While the average model contains just 9 different BPMN constructs,models of this complexity have typically just 4-5 constructs in common, which means that only a small agreed subset of BPMNhas emerged. Our findings have implications for the entire ecosystems of analysts and modelers in that they provide guidanceon how to reduce language complexity, which should increase the ease and speed of process modeling.}, added-at = {2010-10-07T11:09:14.000+0200}, author = {Muehlen, Michael and Recker, Jan}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2d03fe7f6647a8ca3980c379dddc4ddcf/msn}, description = {SpringerLink - Book Chapter}, interhash = {d863f7ca3eded9bcaf6e897e94b2a672}, intrahash = {d03fe7f6647a8ca3980c379dddc4ddcf}, journal = {Advanced Information Systems Engineering}, keywords = {research.conceptual research.bizInt.bpm}, pages = {465--479}, timestamp = {2010-10-07T11:09:14.000+0200}, title = {How Much Language Is Enough? Theoretical and Practical Use of the Business Process Modeling Notation}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69534-9_35}, year = 2008 }