Deriving Decision Models from Process Models by Enhanced Decision Mining

Abstract

Optimal decision making during the business process execution is crucial for achieving the business goals of an enterprise. Process execution often involves the usage of the decision logic specified in terms of business rules represented as atomic elements of conditions leading to conclusions. However, the question of using and integrating the process- and decision-centric approaches, i.e. harmonization of the widely accepted Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and the recent Decision Model and Notation (DMN) proposed by the OMG group, is important. In this paper, we propose a four-step approach to derive decision models from process models on the examples of DMN and BPMN: (1) Identification of decision points in a process model; (2) Extraction of decision logic encapsulating the data dependencies affecting the decisions in the process model; (3) Construction of a decision model; (4) Adaptation of the process model with respect to the derived decision logic. Our contribution also consists in proposing an enrichment of the extracted decision logic by taking into account the predictions of process performance measures corresponding to different decision outcomes. We demonstrate the applicability of the approach on an exemplary business process from the banking domain.