Towards Intuitive Modeling of Business Processes: Prospects for Flow- and Natural-Language Orientation

As organizations need to adapt constantly, it becomes increasingly important for stakeholders to start talking a ‘business-process language’ - they need to develop an understanding of processes in terms of intertwining work structure and behavior information. The closer business-process modeling techniques are to mental representations of their users, i.e. the more intuitively models can be created and communicated, the more effectively models can be utilized in the course of change processes. In our empirical study we were interested in adequately supporting participatory management of change based on business process models. The stakeholders’ individual cognitive work load should be minimal when explicating and sharing process knowledge. In the study individuals not familiar with modeling were introduced to the idea of business-process modeling, and asked to model a given scenario. We also asked them to use a notation with open semantics to enable authentic representations. The results show in the majority of cases flow-oriented understanding of business - process modeling, and in some cases natural language orientation. The data suggest providing respective modeling techniques and tools for organizational development.