BPMN-L: A BPMN extension for modeling of process landscapes

Abstract

Process landscape diagrams represent the umbrella part of a process architecture by defining the scope and relationships between an organization’s business processes. They are fostering awareness and process-related communication by leveraging the benefits of visual notations. However, in contrast to business process diagrams, where nowadays BPMN prevails, process landscape diagrams lack standardization. Accordingly, the main objective of our efforts is to define an effective language for modeling of process landscapes, which is visually compliant with current landscape modeling approaches and structurally related to the BPMN standard. This was achieved by following the design science research methodology in which the proposed solution (named BPMN-L) was characterized, designed, and implemented by analyzing existing process landscape languages and approaches. Afterward, BPMN-L based diagrams were demonstrated and validated quantitatively and with a ‘proof-of-concept’ approach. The results show that BPMN-L is visually compatible with current landscape modeling approaches, especially value chains as well it suits well with multi-abstraction layered modeling based on BPMN. The investigated sample landscape diagrams demonstrate that all concepts, which are specified in BPMN-L, are applicable also in practice. Overall, the proposed solution has the potential to standardize and simplify process landscape discovery and modeling, semi-automate triggering of processes in a value chain and improve the consistency as well as the compatibility of processes architectures.