Collaborative Enterprise Modeling

Key challenges in enterprise business process modeling are to capture complex inter-departmental and organizational processes, and to integrate different perspectives on the operation of the enterprise. Actors often convey different and only partly overlapping perceptions of their business processes, which hinder the construction of fairly accurate models in first modeling attempts. These different accounts of the business processes need to be integrated in a way to create a realistic and acceptable picture of the enterprise. To avoid this reoccurring pitfall and trial-and-error situation, and supporting the integration of different views on enterprise processes, collaborative modeling is emerging as a powerful approach. In this chapter, we report findings from a case study in which we used a collaborative approach to support enterprise business processes modeling with participation of analysts, process owners, and professionals. The deliverables of this chapter are based on a case study with participation of industry partners during a collaborative enterprise modeling session. We will reflect on the approaches used, lessons learned and the role of technology for supporting collaborative modeling.