Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview

John Krogstie

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

krogstie@idi.ntnu.no

Abstract. Processes modeling is done for a number of reasons in relation to

enterprise modeling, business process modeling and information systems devel-
opment in general, and this paper will give an overview of main approaches to
different types of process modeling. Modeling approaches are structured ac-
cording to the main modeling perspective being used. In conceptual modeling
in general, one can identify 8 modeling perspectives; behavioral, functional,
structural, goal-oriented, object-oriented, language action, organizational and
topological. In the paper we will present both historical and current examples of
process modeling according to these different perspectives, and discuss what
perspectives are most appropriate to achieve the different goals of modeling.

Keywords: Process modeling, conceptual modeling.

1 Introduction

A process is a collection of related, structured tasks that produce a specific service or

product to address a certain goal for a particular actor or set of actors. Process model-
ing has been performed relative to IT and organizational development at least since
the 70ties. The interest has gone through phases with the introduction of different
approaches, including Structured Analysis in the seventies [33], BPR in the late eigh-
ties/early nineties [42], and Workflow Management in the nineties [95]. Lately, with
the proliferation of BPM (Business process management) [46], interest and use of
process modeling has increased even further, although focusing primarily on a
selected number of modeling approaches.
Models of work processes have long been utilized to learn about, guide and sup-
port practice also in a number of areas. In software process improvement [22], enter-
prise modeling [32] and quality management, process models describe methods and
standard working procedures. Simulation and quantitative analyses are performed to
improve efficiency [7, 61]. In process centric software engineering environments [9]
and workflow systems [95] model execution is automated. This wide range of appli-
cations is reflected in current modeling languages, which emphasize different aspects
of the process.
The archetypical way to look on processes is as a transformation, according to an
IPO (input-process-output) approach. Whereas early process modeling approaches
had this as a basic approach [33], as process modeling have been integrated with
other types of conceptual modeling, variants of this have appeared.

I. Bider et al. (Eds.): BPMDS 2012 and EMMSAD 2012, LNBIP 113, pp. 315–330, 2012.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
316 J. Krogstie

First we describe different reasons for doing process modeling. Then we describe
different perspectives to modeling, before we in section 4 provide a brief overview of
modeling languages used for process modeling following the different perspectives.
Since many of those languages being used in practice are developed a long time ago
[20] or are extensions of these, we provide also a partly historical overview. In the
conclusion we briefly summarize how modeling according to the different perspec-
tives is beneficial to achieve the various goals of modeling. Since the different goals
of modeling require different properties from the modeling language used, it is useful
to look more closely on the properties of different modeling perspectives to be able to
choose an appropriate modeling approach. Due to size limitation of this paper, this
overview will only be on a high level.

2 Application of Process Modeling

According to general model theory [87] there are three common characteristics of
models: Representation, Simplification and Pragmatic orientation.
• Representation: Models are models of something else
• Simplification: Models possess a reductive trait in that they map a subset of
attributes of the phenomenon being modeled
• Pragmatic orientation: Models have a substitutive function in that they substitute
a certain phenomenon as being conceptualized by a certain subject in a given
temporal space with a certain incentive or operation in mind

Fig. 1. Organizational application of modeling

Process modeling is usually done in some organizational setting. As illustrated in

Fig. 1 one can look upon an organization and its information system abstractly to be
in a state (the current state, often represented as a descriptive 'as-is' model) that are to
be evolved to some future wanted state (often represented as a prescriptive 'to be'
model). Obviously, changes will happen in an organization no matter what is actually
planned, thus one might in practice have the use for many different models and sce-
narios of possible future states, but we simplify the number of possible future states
in the discussion below.
 Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview 317

The state includes the existing processes, organization and computer systems.
These states are often modeled, and the state of the organization is perceived
(differently) by different persons through these models. Different usage areas of
conceptual models as described in [60, 73]:
1. Human sense-making: The descriptive model of the current state can be useful for
people to make sense of and learn about the current perceived situation.
2. Communication between people in the organization: Models can have an impor-
tant role in human communication. Thus, in addition to support the sense-making
process for the individual, a model can act as a common framework supporting
communication both relative to descriptive and prescriptive models.
3. Computer-assisted analysis: This is used to gain knowledge about the organiza-
tion through simulation [6] or deduction, often by comparing a model of the
current state and a model of a future, potentially better state.
4. Quality assurance, ensuring e.g. that the organization acts according to a certified
process developed for instance as part of an ISO-certification process.
5. Model deployment and activation: To integrate the model of the future state in an
information system directly, making the prescriptive model the descriptive model.
Models can be activated in three ways:
a. Through people, where the system offers no active support.
b. Automatically, where the system plays an active role, as in most automated
workflow systems.
c.Interactively, where the computer and the users co-operate [56].
6. To be a prescriptive model to be used in a traditional system development project,
without being directly activated.

3 Perspectives to Modeling

Modeling languages can be divided into classes according to the core phenomena classes
(concepts) that are represented and focused on in the language. This has been called the
perspective of the language [60, 62]. Languages in different perspectives might overlap
in what they express, but emphasize different concepts as described below. A classic
distinction regarding modeling perspectives is between the structural, functional, and
behavioral perspective [74]. Object-orientation analysis appeared as a particular way of
combining the structural and behavioral perspective in the late eighties.
Through other work, such as [19], [70], F3 [15], NATURE [51], [57] additional
perspectives have been identified, including goal, actor, communicational, and
topological. To provide a broad overview of the different perspectives conceptual
modeling approaches accommodate, we look on the following:

Behavioral Perspective: Languages following this perspective go back to the early

sixties, with the introduction of Petri-nets [79]. In most languages with a behavioral
perspective the main phenomena are 'states' and 'transitions' between 'states'. State
transitions are triggered by 'events' [21].
318 J. Krogstie

Functional Perspective: The main phenomena class in the functional perspective is

the 'transformation': A transformation is defined as an activity which based on a set of
phenomena transforms them to another set of phenomena.
Structural Perspective: Approaches within the structural perspective concentrate on
describing the static structure of a system. The main construct of such languages is
the 'entity'.
Goal and Rule Perspective: Goal-oriented modeling focuses on 'goals' and 'rules'. A
rule is something which influences the actions of a set of actors. A rule is either a rule
of necessity or a deontic rule [58, 75]. A rule of necessity is a rule that must always
be satisfied. A deontic rule is a rule which is only socially agreed among a set of per-
sons and organizations. In the early nineties, one started to model so-called rule
hierarchies, linking rules of different abstraction levels.
Object-Oriented Perspective: The basic phenomena of object oriented modeling
languages are similar to those found in most object oriented programming languages;
'Objects' with unique id and a local state that can only be manipulated by calling me-
thods of the object. Objects have a life cycle. The process of the object is the trace of
the events during the existence of the object. A set of objects that share the same
definitions of attributes and operations compose an object class.
Communication Perspective: The work within this perspective is based on
language/action theory from philosophical linguistics. The basic assumption of lan-
guage/action theory is that persons cooperate within work processes through their
conversations and through mutual commitments taken within them.
Actor and Role Perspective: The main phenomena of languages within this perspec-
tive are 'actor' (also termed agent) and 'role'. The background for modeling in this
perspective comes both from organizational science, work on programming languag-
es, and work on intelligent agents in artificial intelligence.
Topological Perspective: This perspective relates to the topological ordering
between the different concepts. The best background for conceptualization of these
aspects comes from the cartography and CSCW fields, differentiating between space
and place [28, 45]. 'Space' describes geometrical arrangements that might structure,
constrain, and enable certain forms of movement and interaction; 'place' denotes the
ways in which settings acquire persistent social meaning through interaction.

4 Perspectives to Process Modeling

We here provide a very brief overview of process modeling according to the different
modeling perspectives identified in section 3 above.

4.1 Process Modeling According to the Behavioral Perspective

States (of systems, products, entities, processes) and transformations between states
are the central concepts in this perspective. There are two language-types commonly
used to model states: State transition diagrams (STD) and state transition matrices
(STM). The vocabulary of state transition diagrams is
 Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview 319

• State: A system is always in one of the states in the lawful state space for the
system. A state is defined by the set of transitions leading to that state, the set of
transitions leading out of that state and the set of values assigned to attributes of
the system while the system resides in that state.
• Event: An event is a message from the environment or from system itself to the
system. The system can react to a set of predefined events.
• Condition: A condition for reacting to an event.
• Transition: Receiving an event will cause a transition to a new state if the event is
defined for the current state, and if the condition assigned to the event evaluates to
true.
• Action: The system can perform an action in response to an event.
It is generally acknowledged that a large complex system cannot be described in a flat
state-model, because of the unmanageable, exponentially growth of states.
Hierarchical abstraction mechanisms were added to traditional STDs in Statecharts
[43]. Statecharts are integrated with functional modeling (see below) in [44]. Later
extensions of Statecharts for object-oriented modeling were developed through the
nineties, and Statecharts are the basis for the state transitions diagrams in UML
(for the modeling of object-states) [14].
Petri-nets [79] are another well-known behavior-oriented modeling language.
Here, places indicate a system state space, and a combination of tokens located in the
places determines the specific system state. State transitions are regulated by firing
rules: A transition is enabled if each of its input places contains a token. A transition
can fire at any time after it is enabled. The transition takes zero time. After the firing
of a transition, a token is removed from each of its input places and a token is pro-
duced in all output places. Control-flow aspects like precedence, concurrency, syn-
chronization, exclusiveness, and iteration can be modeled in a Petri-net. There exists
several dialects of the Petri net language (going back to [67]) where the transitions
are allowed to take time, and these approaches provide decomposition in a way not
very different from that of a data flow diagram. Timed Petri Nets [67] also provide
probability distributions that can be assigned to the time consumption of each transi-
tion and are particularly suited to performance modeling. Other variants are tokens
with named and typed variables (Colored Petri Nets), and nets where transitions have
pre- and post-conditions in some logic. Colored Petri nets are used in particular for
simulation and analysis [52]. anu2, 200
Another type of behavioral modeling is based on System dynamics. Systems think-
ing [85] regards causal relations as mutual, circular and non-linear, hence the
straightforward sequences in transformational process models is seen as an idealiza-
tion that hides important facts. This perspective is also reflected in mathematical
models of interaction [93]. System dynamics have been utilized for analysis of com-
plex relationships in cooperative work arrangements [7]. System dynamic process
models can be used for analysis and simulation, but not for model activation. A
challenge is that it can be difficult to find data to run simulations.
320 J. Krogstie

4.2 Process Modeling According to the Functional Perspective

Most popular process modeling languages take a functional (or transformational /

input-process-output) approach [20]; although some of the most popular recent lan-
guages also include behavioral aspects as will be discussed below. Processes are of-
ten divided into activities, which may be divided further into sub-activities. Each
activity takes inputs, which it transforms to outputs. Input and output relations thus
define the sequence of work. This perspective is chosen for the standards of the
Workflow Management Coalition [95], the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
[13] as well as most commercial systems [30]. IDEF-3x [50] and Data Flow Diagram
(DFD) [33] are paradigm examples of this. DFDs describe a situation using:
Processes, data stores, flows, and external entities.
When a process is decomposed into a set of sub-processes, the sub-processes are
co-operating to fulfill the higher-level function. This view on DFDs has resulted in
the “context diagram" that regards the whole system as a process which receives and
sends all inputs and outputs to and from the system. A context diagram determines
the boundary of a system. A variant of context-diagrams is Use Case diagrams [14].
DFD and use-cases are semi-formal languages. Some of the short-comings of DFD
regarding formality were first addressed in the transformation schema presented by
Ward [92] including both data and control transformations, data and event flows
(signals, activation and deactivation) (data flows being either discrete or continuous)
and variants of stores. A number of the recent process modeling notations typically
add control-flow aspects to a transformational approach and combine aspects of the
functional and behavioral perspectives. Some examples of this are ARIS EPC, UML
Activity Diagrams, YAWL [90], and BPMN.
An Event-driven Process Chain (EPC) [54] is a graphical modeling language used
for business process modeling. EPC was developed within the framework of Archi-
tecture of Integrated Information System (ARIS) [81] to model business processes.
The strength of EPC lies on its simple notation that is capable of portraying business
information system while at the same time incorporating other important features
such as functions, data, organizational structure, and information resources. However
the semantics of an event-driven process chain are not well defined and it is not poss-
ible to check the model for consistency and completeness. As demonstrated in [3],
these problems can be partly addressed by translating EPC-models to Petri nets since
Petri nets have formal semantics enabling analysis techniques.
The UML Activity diagram is one of the three diagram types in the UML for
modeling behavior aspect of systems [14]. The most important concepts in the UML
activity diagram are activities, decision, start (split) or end (join) of concurrent activi-
ties, and start and end states
In 2004, BPMN was presented as the standard business process modeling notation
[96]. Since then BPMN has been evaluated in different ways by the academic
community [1, 80] and has become widely supported in industry.
The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN version 1.0) was adopted by
OMG for ratification in February 2006. The BPMN 2.0 specification was formally
released January 2011 [76].
Given the extensive use of functional languages, a number of analyses focus on
this category [18, 19, 40]. The expressiveness of these languages typically includes
 Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview 321

decomposition, and data flow, while organizational modeling and roles often are
integrated and given less emphasis. In approaches which integrate behavioral and
functional aspects, we see also a support for control flow. Aspects like timing and
quantification, products and communication, or commitments are better supported by
other perspectives. User-orientation is a major advantage of transformational lan-
guages, in particular the pure functional ones. Graphical input-process-output models
are comprehensible given some training, but you can also build models by simply
listing the tasks in plain text, or in a hierarchical work breakdown structure.

4.3 Process Modeling According to the Structural Perspective

The structural perspective has traditionally been handled by languages for data mod-
eling, but also includes approaches from semantic networks and the semantic web. In
ER-modeling as described by [17], the basic components are:
• Entities. An entity is a phenomenon that can be distinctly identified. Entities can
be classified into entity classes
• Relationships. A relationship is an association among entities. Relationships can
be classified into relationship classes
• Attributes and data values. To give value to a property of an entity or relationship.
Values are grouped into value classes by their types.
Structural modeling is often perceived to be fundamentally different from functional
(process) modeling, since it focus on the static aspects, whereas process modeling
focus on dynamics. It is possible to look at processes as entities though (like one have
done in object-oriented process modeling discussed below, looking at the process
instances as the objects) it which case one can model the situation in a similar way as
when doing more traditional data-modeling.
One finds very few attempts on pure structural process modeling in practice,
although as we will discuss below, there are approaches to object-oriented process
modeling.

4.4 Process Modeling According to the Goal and Rule Perspective

In the workflow area, the use of rules for guiding the workflow is often termed
declarative workflow. Constraint based languages [27, 35] prescribe a course of
events, rather they capture the boundaries within which the process must be per-
formed, leaving the actors to control the internal details. Instead of telling people
what to do, these systems warn about rule violations and enforce constraints. Thus,
problems with over-serialization can be avoided [35].
A wide variety of declarative modeling approaches has been specified in business
process management, from the use of basic Event-condition-action (ECA)-rules [53]
to declarative process modeling languages such as DecSerFlow [4], BPCN [66] and
ConDec [78]. In [36] an overview of the most common declarative process modeling
languages can be found.
Several advantages have been experienced with a declarative, rule-based approach to
information systems modeling [59], but also a number of challenges. Languages
322 J. Krogstie

representing rule-based process modeling can potentially provide a higher expressive-

ness than diagrammatic languages (e.g. the ability to specify temporal requirements)
[66], but this might result in process models which are less comprehensible [29].
Declarative process enactment guarantees high run-time flexibility for declarative
process specifications that contain only the strictly required mandatory constraints.
An individual execution path that satisfies the set of mandatory constraints can be
dynamically built for a specific process instance. Process compliance is assured when
all mandatory rules are correctly mapped onto mandatory business constraints. Dur-
ing the construction of a suitable execution path little support is provided to the end
user [94], which could affect the process effectiveness. In [58] differentiating con-
straints by modality is proposed, recommendations were introduced to guide the user
whereas obligations would ensure compliant behavior. Lastly, the increased size and
complexity of contemporary process models might decrease the potential for process
automation since current declarative workflow management systems might have
limited efficiency in when having to take into account a large number of rules accord-
ing to [5].
A graphic depiction is difficult since it would correspond to a visualization of sev-
eral possible solutions to the set of constraint equations constituting the model. The
support for articulation of planned and ongoing tasks is limited. Consequently, con-
straints are often combined with transformational models [27, 55, 63]. Alternatively
one can have the operational rules related to the process model also linked to goal
hierarchies as in [58, 59].

4.5 Process Modeling According to the Object-Oriented Perspective

UML [14] has become both the official and de facto standard for object oriented
analysis and design. Consequently, people also apply UML to model business
processes. Object orientation offers a number of useful modeling mechanisms like
encapsulation, polymorphism, subtyping and inheritance [64, 71]. UML integrates
these capabilities with e.g. requirements capture in use case descriptions as described
above and behavior modeling in state, activity and sequence diagrams. On the other
hand, UML is designed for software developers, not for end users. A core challenge
thus remains in mapping system-oriented UML constructs to user- and process-
oriented concepts [47]. To this problem no general solution exists [64]. One
approach which is somewhat similar to how one can use structural modeling for
process modeling is PML [10]. Here one uses object oriented techniques based on
looking upon classes in a particular way. Whereas a class is defined by <class name,
attributes, methods>, in PML one define this as <process name, methods, resources>.
The PML process class describes the process in a generic way. It allows one to define
all methods with assurances and resources needed for the process. The instantiation
of a process is a project. This means, the instance of a process defines the current
occurrence of resources, used data models etc. Regarding connections and dependen-
cies between single process classes, PML features the standard UML-mechanisms of
inheritance and associations.
Although with intriguing possibilities, it is safe to say that full-fledged OO
process modeling has yet to be taken into use in large scale in practice.
 Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview 323

4.6 Process Modeling According to the Communication Perspective

The communication perspective, often termed the language action perspective was
brought into the workflow arena through the COORDINATOR prototype [97], later
succeeded by the Action Workflow system [69]. This perspective is informed by
speech act theory [82], which extends the notion that people use language to describe
the world with a focus on how people use language for coordinating action and nego-
tiating commitments. Habermas took Searle's theory as a starting point for his theory
of communicative action [41]. Central to Habermas is the distinction between strateg-
ic and communicative action. When involved in strategic action, the participants try
to achieve their own private goals. When they cooperate, they are only motivated
empirically to do so. When involved in communicative action, the participants are
oriented towards mutual agreement. The motivation for co-operation is thus rational.
Illocutionary logic [26, 84] is a logical formalization of the theory of Searle. The
main parts of illocutionary logic are the illocutionary act consisting of three parts,
illocutionary context, illocutionary force, and propositional context. The context of an
illocutionary act consists of five elements: Speaker, hearer, time, location, and
circumstances. The illocutionary force determines the reasons and the goal of the
communication. The central element of the illocutionary force is the illocutionary
point, and the other elements depend on this. Five illocutionary points are distin-
guished [83]: Assertives, Directives, Commissives, Declaratives, Expressives
Speech act theory is the basis for modeling of workflow as coordination among
people in Action Workflow [69]. The main strength of this approach is that it facili-
tates analysis of the communicative aspects of the process. It highlights that each
process is an interaction between a customer and a performer, represented as a cycle
with four phases: preparation, negotiation, performance and acceptance. The dual role
constellation is a basis for work breakdown, e.g. the performer can delegate parts of
the work to other people. This explicit representation of communication and negotia-
tion, and especially the structuring of the conversation into predefined speech act
steps, has also been criticized [16, 23, 88]. Minimal support for situated conversa-
tions, the danger that explication leads to increased external control of the work, and
a simplistic one-to-one mapping between utterances and actions are among the weak-
nesses pointed to. On the other hand, it has been reported that the Action Workflow
approach is useful when people act pragmatically and don't always follow the
encoded rules of behavior [23], i.e. when the communication models are interactively
activated.
Some approaches to workflow modeling combine aspects of both the functional
and communicative perspective. In WooRKS [8] functional modeling is used for
processes and language action modeling for exceptions. TeamWare Flow [89] on the
other hand can be said to be a hybrid approach. In addition to the approach to
workflow-modeling described above, several other approaches to conceptual model-
ing are inspired by the theories of Habermas and Searle such as SAMPO [11], and
ABC/DEMO [24, 25].
324 J. Krogstie

4.7 Process Modeling According to the Actor and Role Perspective

Role-centric process modeling languages have been applied for work-flow analysis
and implementation. Role Interaction Nets (RIN) [86] and Role Activity Diagrams
(RAD) [77] use roles as a main structuring concept. The activities performed by a role
are grouped together in the diagram, either in swimlanes (RIN), or inside boxes
(RAD). The use of roles as a structuring concept makes it very clear who is responsi-
ble for what. RAD has also been merged with speech acts for interaction between
roles [12]. A newer approach in this direction is S-BPM (subject-oriented business
process management [31]).
The role-based approach also has limitations, e.g. making it difficult to change the
organizational distribution of work. It primarily targets analysis of administrative
procedures, where formal roles are important. The use of swimlanes in BPMN and
UML Activity Diagrams described above might also have this effect. Some other
approaches worth discussing here are REA and e3Value.
The REA language was first described in McCarthy [68]. It has been developed
further in [34]. REA was originally intended as a basis for accounting information
systems and focuses on representing increases and decreases of value in an organiza-
tion. REA has later been extended to apply to enterprise architectures [49] and
e-commerce frameworks [91].
The core concepts in the REA language are resource, event and agent. The intui-
tion behind this language is that every business transaction can be described as an
event where two agents exchange resources. In order to acquire a resource from other
agents, an agent has to give up some of its own resource. It seldom happens that one
agent simply gives away a resource to another without expecting another resource
back as compensation. Basically, there are two types of events: exchange and conver-
sion [49]. An exchange occurs when an agent receives economic resources from
another agent and gives resource back to that agent. A conversion occurs when an
agent consumes resources to produce other resources. REA has influence the
electronic commerce standard ebXML.
E3Value [39] is an actor/role oriented modeling language for inter-organizational
modeling. The purpose of this modeling language is to represent how actors of a
system create, exchange and consume objects of economic value, only including
value-adding activities. The modeling language focuses on the key points of a busi-
ness model, to get an understanding of business operations and systems requirements
through scenario analysis and evaluation. The purpose of e3value is to determine
whether a business idea is profitable or not, that is to say by analyzing for each actor
involved in the system if the idea is profitable for them or not. E3value models give a
representation of actors, exchanges, value objects of a business system. Modeling at
the actor-level is one approach to address BPM-in-the-large [48].

4.8 Process Modeling According to the Topological Perspective

The concept of place can be related to a process, given that a place focuses on the
typical behavior in a certain setting rather than where this is physically. Whereas
some processes are closely related to place (e.g. what can be done in a certain,
 Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview 325

specialized factory), more and more tasks can be done in more or less any setting due
to the mobile communication infrastructure, thus making it useful to be able to diffe-
rentiate geographic/topological from transformation-oriented modeling. In certain
representations, aspects of space and place is closely interlinked (e.g. in the represen-
tation of the agenda of a conference, also taking time into account). Some approaches
letting you take the place into account exists, e.g. work on extending UML activity
diagrams with place-oriented aspects [3]. An even more topologically oriented
approach is to group concepts at the same location [38].
Traditional representations of space such as a map have to a limited degree been
oriented towards representation of process knowledge. Some recent approaches do
take these aspects more consciously into account, as exemplified by [72], combining
conceptual, temporal, and geographic knowledge representation. Other approaches
use the topological perspective more as a metaphor [2].

5 Concluding Remarks

We have summarized this high-level overview of the field, looking upon approaches
according to different perspectives relative to the different usage areas for process
modeling presented in section 2, and also indicated the amount of actual use of the
approach in practice.

Table 1. Usage of modeling perspectives

Area (vs. Fig. 1) 1+2 3 4 5a 5b 5c 6

Perspective (vs. 4.1- Sense& An QA Man. Work Inter- Req.
4.8) Com al. Activa- -flow active for
tion activ. ISD
4.1 Behavioral -/o +/o -/- -/- +/o -/- o/-
4.2 Functional +/+ -/- +/o +/o -/- o/- +/o
4.2 Behavioral + +/o +/o o/- o/- +/+ +/o o/o
Functional
4.3 Structural o/- -/- -/- -/- -/- -/- o/-
4.4 Rule/Goal -/- o/- o/- -/- o/- o/- o/o
4.5 Object-oriented -/- o/- -/- -/- -/- -/- o/-
4.6 Communicational o/- -/- -/- -/- o/- o/- -/-
4.7 Actor +/o o/- o/- o/- -/- -/- o/o
4.8 Topological o/- -/- -/- o/- -/- o/- o/-

The legend indicates the applicability of the approach / actual use of the approach
(relative to the usage of modeling for this task), '+' indicates good applicability or
high use, 'o' is some applicability and use, whereas '-' indicate poor applicability and
limited use. E.g. o/- under the communicational perspective for sense-making and
communication indicates that it has some applicability for this use, but are very little
used in practice. Obviously different approaches according to the same perspective
can be more or less applicable, and different languages of a certain perspective would
score differently based on the concrete expressiveness and level of formality of the
326 J. Krogstie

language and modeling approach. Due to space limitations, it is not possible to pro-
vide the detailed concrete evaluations of all approaches that we mentioned in the pre-
vious section. From the table, we see that functional and combinations of functional
and behavioral approaches are used the most. All other perspectives have potential for
use for certain areas, although this often varies relative to concrete needs in the do-
main for representing particular aspects (such as topological aspects which in many
cases might not be relevant). In particular some of the less traditional approaches
appear to have large untapped potential for a richer more appropriate representation of
what we term processes and business processes. We work on a longer article includ-
ing examples to better illustrate the pros and cons of different approaches to process
modeling.

References
1. Aagesen, G., Krogstie, J.: Analysis and design of business processes using BPMN. In:
Handbook on Business Process Management. Springer (2010)
2. van der Aalst, W.M.P.: TomTom for Business Process Management (TomTom4BPM). In:
van Eck, P., Gordijn, J., Wieringa, R. (eds.) CAiSE 2009. LNCS, vol. 5565, pp. 2–5.
Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
3. van der Aalst, W.M.P.: Formalization and Verification of Event-driven Process Chains.
Information and Software Technology 41, 639–650 (1999)
4. van der Aalst, W.M.P., Pesic, M.: DecSerFlow: Towards a truly declarative service flow
language. In: Web Services and Formal Methods, pp. 1–23 (2006)
5. van der Aalst, W.M.P., Pesic, M., Schonenberg, H.: Declarative workflows: Balancing be-
tween flexibility and support. Computer Science-Research and Development 23(2) (2009)
6. van der Aalst, W.M.P., Nakatumba, J., Rozinat, A., Russel, N.: Business process simula-
tion. In: vom Brocke, J., Rosemann, M. (eds.) Handbook on Business Process Manage-
ment 1. Springer (2010)
7. Abdel-Hamid, T.K., Madnick, S.E.: Lessons Learned from Modeling the Dynamics of
Software Development. Communications of the ACM 32(12) (2000)
8. Ader, M., Lu, G., Pons, P., Monguio, J., Lopez, L., De Michelis, G., Grasso, M.A., Vlondakis,
G.: Woorks, an object-oriented workflow system for offices. Technical report, ITHACA
(1994)
9. Ambriola, V., Conradi, R., Fuggetta, A.: Assessing Process-Centered Software Engineer-
ing Environments. ACM TOSEM 6(3) (1997)
10. Anderl, R., Raßler, J.: Computer-Aided Innovation (CAI), Gaetano Cascini. IFIP, vol. 277.
Springer, Boston (2008)
11. Auramäki, E., Hirschheim, R., Lyytinen, K.: Modelling offices through discourse analysis:
The SAMPO approach. The Computer Journal 35(4), 342–352 (1992)
12. Benson, I., Everhard, S., McKernan, A., Galewsky, B., Partridge, C.: Mathematical Struc-
tures for Reasoning about Emergent Organization. In: ACM CSCW Workshop: Beyond
Workflow Management, Philadelphia, USA (2000)
13. Bolcer, G., Kaiser, G.: SWAP: Leveraging the web to manage workflow. IEEE Internet
Computing 3(1) (1999)
14. Booch, G., Rumbaugh, J., Jacobson, I.: The Unified Modeling Language: User Guide.
Addison-Wesley (2005)
 Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview 327

15. Bubenko Jr. J. A., Rolland, C., Loucopoulos, P., DeAntonellis, V.: Facilitating fuzzy to
formal requirements modeling. In: Proceedings of the First International Conference on
Requirements Engineering (ICRE 1994), April 18-22, pp. 154–157. IEEE Computer
Society Press, Colorado Springs (1994)
16. Button, G.: What’s Wrong with Speech Act Theory. CSCW 3(1) (1995)
17. Chen, P.P.: The entity-relationship model: Towards a unified view of data. ACM Transac-
tions on Database Systems 1(1), 9–36 (1976)
18. Conradi, R., Jaccheri, M.L.: Process Modelling Languages. In: Derniame, J.-C., Kaba, B.A.,
Wastell, D. (eds.) Promoter-2 1998. LNCS, vol. 1500, pp. 27–52. Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
19. Curtis, B., Kellner, M.I., Over, J.: Process Modeling. CACM 35(9) (1992)
20. Davies, I., Green, P., Rosemann, M., Indulska, M., Gallo, S.: How do practitioners use
conceptual modeling in practice? Data & Knowledge Engineering 58, 358–380 (2006)
21. Davis, A.M.: A comparison of techniques for the specification of external system beha-
vior. Communications of the ACM 31(9), 1098–1115 (1988)
22. Derniame, J.-C., Kaba, B.A., Wastell, D. (eds.): Promoter-2 1998. LNCS, vol. 1500.
Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
23. De Michelis, G., Grasso, M.A.: Situating Conversations within the Language/Action Pers-
pective: The Milan Conversation Model. In: ACM CSCW Conference, Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, USA (1994)
24. Dietz, J.L.G.: Integrating management of human and computer resources in task processing
organizations: A conceptual view. In: HICCS’27, Maui, Hawaii, US, January 4-7 (1994)
25. Dietz, J.L.G.: Enterprise Ontology – Theory and Methodology. Springer (2006)
26. Dignum, F., Weigand, H.: Communication and deontic logic. In: Wieringa, R., Feenstra,
R. (eds.) Working papers of the International Workshop on Information Systems -
Correctness and Reuseability, IS-CORE 1994 (1994)
27. Dourish, P., Holmes, J., MacLean, A., Marqvardsen, P., Zbyslaw, A.: Freeflow: Mediating
between representation and action in workflow systems. In: ACM CSCW Conference,
Boston, USA (1996)
28. Dourish, P.: Re-Space-ing Place: “Place” and “Space” Ten Years. In: Proc. of ACM Conf.
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work CSCW 2006, Banff, Canada, pp. 299–308. ACM
(2006)
29. Fickas, S.: Design issues in a rule-based system. Journal of Systems and Software 10(2),
113–123 (1989)
30. Fischer, L.: Excellence in Practice IV - Innovation and excellence in workflow and know-
ledge management. Workflow Management Coalition, Future Strategies, USA (2000)
31. Fleischmann, A.: What is S-BPM? In: Buchwald, H., Fleischmann, A., Seese, D., Stary, C.
(eds.) S-BPM ONE. CCIS, vol. 85, pp. 85–106. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
32. Fox, M.S., Gruninger, M.: Enterprise modeling. AI Magazine (2000)
33. Gane, C., Sarson, T.: Structured Systems Analysis: Tools and Techniques. Prentice Hall
(1979)
34. Geerts, G.L., McCarthy, W.E.: An Accounting Object Infrastructure for Knowledge-Based
Enterprise Models. IEEE Intelligent Systems 14, 89–94 (1999)
35. Glance, N.S., Pagani, D.S., Pareschi, R.: Generalized Process Structure Grammars (GPSG)
for Flexible Representation of Work. In: ACM CSCW Conference, Boston, USA (1996)
36. Goedertier, S., Vanthienen, J.: An overview of declarative process modeling principles and
languages. Com. of Systemics and Informatics World Network 6, 51–58 (2009)
328 J. Krogstie

37. Gopalakrishnan, S., Krogstie, J., Sindre, G.: Adapting UML Activity Diagrams for Mobile
Work Process Modelling: Experimental Comparison of Two Notation Alternatives. In: van
Bommel, P., Hoppenbrouwers, S., Overbeek, S., Proper, E., Barjis, J. (eds.) PoEM 2010.
LNBIP, vol. 68, pp. 145–161. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)
38. Gopalakrishnan, S., Sindre, G.: Diagram Notations for Mobile Work Processes Presented
at PoEM, Oslo Norway November 2-3 (2011)
39. Gordijn, J., Yu, E., van der Raadt, B.: e-service Design using i* and e3value, IEEE Soft-
ware (May- June 2006)
40. Green, P., Rosemann, M.: Integrated Process Modeling: An Ontological Evaluation.
Information Systems 25(3) (2000)
41. Habermas, J.: The Theory of Communicative Action. Beacon Press (1984)
42. Hammer, M., Champy, J.: Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business
Revolution. Harper Business (1993)
43. Harel, D.S.: A visual formalism for complex systems. Science of Computer Programming
(8), 231–274 (1987)
44. Harel, D., Lachover, H., Naamed, A., Pnueli, A., Politi, M., Sherman, R., Shtull-Trauring,
A., Trakhtenbrot, M.: STATEMATE: a working environment for thedevelopment of com-
plex reactive systems. IEEE TSE 16(4), 403–414 (1990)
45. Harrison, S., Dourish, P.: Re-Place-ing Space: The Roles of Space and Place in Collabora-
tive Systems. In: Proc. CSCW 1996, Boston, MA, pp. 67–76. ACM, New York (1996)
46. Havey, M.: Essential Business Process Modelling. O’Reilly (2005)
47. Hommes, B.-J., van Reijswoud, V.: The quality of business process modelling techniques.
In: Conference on Information Systems Concepts, Leiden, Nertherlands. Kluwer (1999)
48. Houy, C., Fettke, P., Loos, P., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Krogstie, J.: BPM-in-the-Large –
Towards a higher level of abstraction in Business Process Management. Paper Presented at
GISP under WCC 2010, Brisbane, Australia (September 2010)
49. Hruby, P.: Model-Driven Design Using Business Patterns. Springer, New York (2006)
50. IDEF-3x Process Modeling Language Specification, Standard NA-94-1422B, Rockwell
International (1993)
51. Jarke, M., Bubenko Jr., J., Rolland, C., Sutcliffe, A., Vassiliou, Y.: Theories underlying
requirements engineering: An overview of NATURE at genesis. In: Proceedings of RE
1993, pp. 19–31 (1993)
52. Jensen, K., Kristiansen, L.M., Wells, L.: Coloured petri nets and CPN tools got modelling and
validation of concurrent systems. Int. J. Softw. Tools Technol. Transfer 9(3-4), 213–254
(2007)
53. Kappel, G., Rausch-Schott, S., Retschitzegger, W.: Coordination in workflow management
systems a rule-based approach. In: Coordination Technology for Collaborative Applica-
tions, pp. 99-119 (1998)
54. Keller, G., Nüttgens, M., Scheer, A.W.: Semantische Prozeßmodellierung auf der Grundlage
Ereignisgesteuerter Prozeßketten (EPK) (1992)
55. Krogstie, J., McBrien, P., Owens, R., Seltveit, A.H.: Information Systems Development Using
a Combination of Process and Rule Based Approaches. In: Andersen, R., Sølvberg, A.,
Bubenko Jr., J.A. (eds.) CAiSE 1991. LNCS, vol. 498, pp. 319–335. Springer, Heidelberg
(1991)
56. Krogstie, J., Jørgensen, H.D.: Interactive Models for Supporting Networked Organisations.
In: Persson, A., Stirna, J. (eds.) CAiSE 2004. LNCS, vol. 3084, pp. 550–563. Springer,
Heidelberg (2004)
57. Krogstie, J., Opdahl, A., Brinkkemper, S. (eds.): Conceptual Modelling in Information
Systems Engineering. Springer (2007)
 Perspectives to Process Modeling – A Historical Overview 329

58. Krogstie, J., Sindre, G.: Utilizing deontic operators in information systems specifications.
Requirement Engineering Journal 1, 210–237 (1996)
59. Krogstie, J.: Integrated Goal, Data and Process modeling: From TEMPORA to Model-
Generated Work-Places. In: Johannesson, P., Søderstrøm, E. (eds.) Information Systems
Engineering From Data Analysis to Process Networks, pp. 43–65. IGI Publishing (2008)
60. Krogstie, J.: Model-based Development and Evolution of Information Systems: A Quality
Approach. Springer (2012)
61. Kuntz, J.C., Christiansen, T.R., Cohen, G.P., Jin, Y., Levitt, R.E.: The virtual design team:
A computational simulation model of project organizations. Communications of the
ACM 41(11) (1998)
62. Lillehagen, F., Krogstie, J.: Active Knowledge Modeling of Enterprises. Springer (2008)
63. Lindland, O.I., Krogstie, J.: Validating Conceptual Models by Transformational Prototyping.
In: Rolland, C., Cauvet, C., Bodart, F. (eds.) CAiSE 1993. LNCS, vol. 685, pp. 165–183.
Springer, Heidelberg (1993)
64. Loos, P., Allweyer, T.: Process orientation and object-orientation - An approach for inte-
grating UML with event-driven process chains (EPC), Germany (1998)
65. Lu, R., Sadiq, S., Governatori, G.: On managing business processes variants. Data &
Knowledge Engineering 68(7), 642–664 (2009)
66. Lu, R., Sadiq, W.: A Survey of Comparative Business Process Modeling Approaches. In:
Abramowicz, W. (ed.) BIS 2007. LNCS, vol. 4439, pp. 82–94. Springer, Heidelberg
(2007)
67. Marsan, M.A., et al. (eds.): Proceeding of the International workshop on Timed Petri Nets,
Torino, Italy. IEEE Computer Society Press (1985)
68. McCarthy, W.E.: The REA accounting model: a generalized framework for accounting
systems in a shared data environment. The Accounting Review 57, 554–578 (1982)
69. Medina-Mora, R., Winograd, T., Flores, R., Flores, F.: The Action Workflow approach to
workflow management technology. In: ACM CSCW Conference (1992)
70. Mili, H., Tremblay, G., Jaoude, G.B., Lefebvre, É., Elabed, L., El Boussaidi, G.: Business
process modeling languages: Sorting through the alphabet soup. ACM Comput. Surv. 43(1),
Article 4 (December 2010)
71. Mühlen, M.Z., Becker, J.: Workflow management and object-orientation - A matter of
perspectives or why perspectives matter. In: OOPSLA Workshop on Object-Oriented
Workflow Management, Denver, USA (1999)
72. Nossum, A., Krogstie, J.: Integrated Quality of Models and Quality of Maps. In: Halpin, T.,
Krogstie, J., Nurcan, S., Proper, E., Schmidt, R., Soffer, P., Ukor, R. (eds.) BPMDS 2009 and
EMMSAD 2009. LNBIP, vol. 29, pp. 264–276. Springer, Heidelberg (2009)
73. Nysetvold, A.G., Krogstie, J.: Assessing Business Process Modeling Languages Using a
Generic Quality Framework. In: Siau, K. (ed.) Advanced Topics in Database Research,
vol. 5, pp. 79–93. Idea Group, Hershey (2006)
74. Olle, T.W., Hagelstein, J., MacDonald, I.G., Rolland, C., Sol, H.G., van Assche, F.J.M.,
Verrijn-Stuart, A.A.: Information Systems Methodologies. Addison-Wesley (1988)
75. OMG, Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules Interim Specification (2006b),
http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?dtc/06/03/02
(retrieved January 1, 2006)
76. OMG. BPMN v2 Specification. Technical report, OMG (January 2011)
(http://www.omg.org/), http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/
77. Ould, M.A.: Business Processes - Modeling and Analysis for Re-engineering and
Improvement. Wiley, Beverly Hills (1995)
330 J. Krogstie

78. Pesic, M., van der Aalst, W.M.P.: A Declarative Approach for Flexible Business Processes
Management. In: Eder, J., Dustdar, S. (eds.) BPM Workshops 2006. LNCS, vol. 4103,
pp. 169–180. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
79. Petri, C.A.: Kommunikation mit automaten (in German). Schriften des Rheinisch-
Westfalischen Institut fur Instrumentelle Mathematik an der Universität Bonn (2) (1962)
80. Recker, J., Rosemann, M., Krogstie, J.: Ontology- versus pattern-based evaluation of
process modeling language: A comparison. Communications of the Association for Infor-
mation Systems 20, 774–799 (2007)
81. Scheer, A.-W., Nüttgens, M.: ARIS Architecture and Reference Models for Business
Process Management, pp. 301–304 (2000)
82. Searle, J.R.: Speech Acts. Cambridge University Press (1969)
83. Searle, J.R.: Expression and Meaning. Cambridge University Press (1979)
84. Searle, J.R., Vanderveken, D.: Foundations of Illocutionary Logic. Cambridge University
Press (1985)
85. Senge, P.: The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Cen-
tury Business Publishers, London (1990)
86. Singh, B., Rein, G.L.: Role Interaction Nets (RINs); A Process Description Formalism,
Technical Report CT-083-92, MCC, Austin, Texas (1992)
87. Stachowiak, H.: Allgemeine Modelltheorie. Springer, Wien (1973)
88. Suchman, L.: Do categories have politics? CSCW 2(3) (1994)
89. Swenson, K.D., et al.: A business process environment supporting collaborative planning.
Journal of Collaborative Computing 1(1) (1994)
90. ter Hofstede, A.H.M., van der Aalst, W.M.P., Adams, M., Russell, N. (eds.): Modern
Business Process Automation: YAWL and its Support Environment. Springer (2010)
91. UMM - UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology User Guide (2007)
92. Ward, P.T.: The transformation schema: An extension of the dataflow diagram to represent
control and timing. IEEE Transactions on SE 12(2), 198–210 (1986)
93. Wegner, P., Goldin, D.: Interaction as a Framework for Modeling. In: Chen, P.P., Akoka, J.,
Kangassalu, H., Thalheim, B. (eds.) Conceptual Modeling. LNCS, vol. 1565, pp. 243–257.
Springer, Heidelberg (1999)
94. Weske, M.: Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architectures. Springer-
Verlag New York Inc. (2007)
95. WfMC Workflow Handbook 2001. Workflow Management Coalition, Future Strategies
Inc., Lighthouse Point, Florida, USA (2000)
96. White. S.A. Introduction to BPMN. IBM Cooperation (2004)
97. Winograd, T., Flores, F.: Understanding Computers and Cognition. A-W (1986)