Comparing Imperative and Declarative Process Models with Flow Dependencies

Abstract

The field of process model similarity matching is well examined for imperative process models like BPMN models, Petri nets, or EPCs. For the recently upcoming declarative process models, generally providing more flexibility than imperative models, however, there is a lack of comparison methods. Along with their advantage of providing more flexibility, declarative process models have a disadvantage in comprehending the models, especially the models' behavior. To overcome this problem, a comparison of imperative and declarative models is reasonable to check whether the declarative model represents a desired behavior which is easier to express and validate in an imperative notation. The work at hand provides a method based on flow dependencies, abstracting from the modeling type, for comparing two process models. It uses not only information about control-flow, but also data-based dependencies between process activities.