Composite, Real-time Validation for Business Process Modelling

What is it about?

Graduates with Business Process Management (BPM) competencies are highly sought after and Business Process (BP) modelling skills form an integral part of the BPM skillset. One challenge facing modellers is that only a few existing BP modelling languages have intuitive validation techniques which check for syntactic issues or rule violations. Not having an intuitive validation technique to support the effective and accurate creation of BP models can affect the success of BP modelling projects and have a negative impact on the operations of the business. In this paper a composite, real-time validation technique is proposed which provides both graphical and textual feedback. The Event-Driven Process Chain (EPC) modelling notation is used to demonstrate the proposed validation technique. Investigating the effectiveness and usability of the approach when implemented in a Microsoft Visio environment reveals that a composite, real-time validation technique reduces the volume of issues that typically are made during the modelling activity and enables modellers to distinguish between the severities of the different types of issues. The validation technique can also assist modellers in learning the rules and syntax of a modelling language.

Featured Image