The Modeling Mind: Behavior Patterns in Process Modeling

To advance the understanding of factors influencing the quality of business process models, researchers have recently begun to investigate the way how humans create process models—the process of process modeling (PPM). In this idea paper, we subscribe to this human–centered perspective of process modeling and present future research directions pursued in the vision of Modeling Mind.

In particular, we envision to extend existing research toward PPM behavior patterns (PBP) that emerge during the creation of process models. Thereby, we explore PBPs by triangulating several quantitative and qualitative research methods, i.e., integrating the modeler’s interaction with the modeling environment, think aloud data, and eye movement data.

Having established a set of PBPs, we turn toward investigating factors determining the occurrence of PBPs, taking into account modeler–specific and task–specific factors. These factors manifest as modeling expertise, self–regulation, and working memory capacity. In a next step, we seek to investigate the connection between PBPs and process model quality in terms of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic quality.

These findings, in turn, will be used for facilitating the development of customized modeling environments, supporting the process modeler in creating process models of high quality. Through this idea paper, we would like to invite researcher to join our research efforts to ultimately arrive at a comprehensive understanding of the PPM, leading to process models of higher quality.