In the past decades, organizations had to face numerous challenges due to intensifying globalization and internationalization, shorter innovation cycles and growing IT support for business. Business process management is seen as a comprehensive approach to align business strategy, organization, controlling, and business activities to react flexibly to market changes. For this purpose, business process models are increasingly utilized to document and redesign relevant parts of the organization's business operations. Since companies tend to have a growing number of business process models stored in a process model repository, analysis techniques are required that assess the quality of these process models in an automatic fashion. While available techniques can easily check the formal content of a process model, there are only a few techniques available that analyze the natural language content of a process model. Therefore, techniques are required that address linguistic issues caused by the actual use of natural language. In order to close this gap, this doctoral thesis explicitly targets inconsistencies caused by natural language and investigates the potential of automatically detecting and resolving them under a linguistic perspective. In particular, this doctoral thesis provides the following contributions. First, it defines a classification framework that structures existing work on process model analysis and refactoring. Second, it introduces the notion of atomicity, which implements a strict consistency condition between the formal content and the textual content of a process model. Based on an explorative investigation, we reveal several reoccurring violation patterns are not compliant with the notion of atomicity. Third, this thesis proposes an automatic refactoring technique that formalizes the identified patterns to transform a non-atomic process models into an atomic one. Fourth, this thesis defines an automatic technique for detecting and refactoring synonyms and homonyms in process models, which is eventually useful to unify the terminology used in an organization. Fifth and finally, this thesis proposes a recommendation-based refactoring approach that addresses process models suffering from incompleteness and leading to several possible interpretations. The efficiency and usefulness of the proposed techniques is further evaluated by real-world process model repositories from various industries. (author's abstract)

A core aspect of diagrammatic process modeling is the visualization of the logical and temporal order in which tasks are to be performed in a process. While conventions and guidelines exist that promote modeling processes from left-to-right or from top-to-bottom, no empirically validated design rationale can be provided for this choice so far. Therefore, this paper seeks to determine whether some flow directions are better than others from a cognitive point of view. We present the results of a controlled pilot experiment comparing the effects of four flow directions (left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top) on process model comprehension with a small sample size of 44 participants. Although there is a variety of theoretical arguments which support the use of a left-to-right flow direction as convention for process models, the preliminary empirical results of the pilot experiment were less clear-cut and showed that model readers also adapted well to uncommon reading directions.

The main aim of this study is to investigate human understanding of process models and to develop an improved understanding of its relevant influence factors. Aided by assumptions from cognitive psychology, this article attempts to address specific deductive reasoning difficulties based on process models. The authors developed a research model to capture the influence of two effects on the cognitive difficulty of reasoning tasks: (i) the presence of different control-flow patterns (such as conditional or parallel execution) in a process model and (ii) the interactivity of model elements. Based on solutions to 61 different reasoning tasks by 155 modelers, the results from this study indicate that the presence of certain control-flow patterns influences the cognitive difficulty of reasoning tasks. In particular, sequence is relatively easy, while loops in a model proved difficult. Modelers with higher process modeling knowledge performed better and rated subjective difficulty of loops lower than modelers with lower process modeling knowledge. The findings additionally support the prediction that interactivity between model elements is positively related to the cognitive difficulty of reasoning. Our research contributes to both academic literature on the comprehension of process models and practitioner literature focusing on cognitive difficulties when using process models.

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2016-10-06T16:29:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Maurício de Oliveira Saraiva_.pdf: 6467007 bytes, checksum: 7a0d95202fd7af8fa777e0b1cb5f6fb0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-10-06T16:29:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maurício de Oliveira Saraiva_.pdf: 6467007 bytes, checksum: 7a0d95202fd7af8fa777e0b1cb5f6fb0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-07-28 / UNICO - Universidade Corporativa dos Correios / A evolução da tecnologia tem permitido um suporte cada vez melhor à disciplina de gerenciamento de processos de negócio (BPM). A automação de práticas, a partir de ferramentas de modelagem, possibilita construir modelos visando apoiar as organizações no desenho e gerenciamento de seus processos. Em BPM, a transformação e melhoria contínua de processos são fundamentais para o gerenciamento da organização e os modelos de processos de negócio devem acompanhar essa evolução. Para realizar a composição desses modelos, seja pela transformação de um ou mais processos ou pela fusão de organizações, analistas usam as técnicas disponíveis na literatura. Porém, frequentemente elas são consideradas imprecisas ao não assegurar a correta integração dos modelos. Consequentemente, compor modelos de processos de negócio se torna uma tarefa difícil, custosa e propensa a erros, uma vez que as técnicas existentes criam modelos compostos difíceis de entendimento baseados em grafos e notação genérica que não correspondem à realidade do mercado de trabalho. Portanto, este trabalho propõe uma técnica de composição de modelos de processos de negócio que reúne, em uma única fonte, o conjunto das técnicas mais utilizadas na literatura, bem como dá suporte à composição de modelos direcionada para uma notação largamente conhecida e utilizada pelas organizações. Além disso, propõe a implementação de uma ferramenta, baseada nessa técnica, que foi criada para definir a similaridade e apoiar a integração de modelos de forma semiautomática. Por fim, estudos experimentais foram realizados com analistas que resolveram seis cenários de composição de modelos, tanto de forma manual como com o apoio dessa ferramenta, cujo resultado mostrou que a técnica proposta, de fato, melhora a precisão e reduz o esforço de composição, proporcionando redução de custos e aumento de produtividade. / The evolution of technology has allowed an increasingly better support to the discipline of business process management (BPM). The automation of practices from modeling tools, allows building models to support organizations in the design and management of its processes. In BPM, the transformation and continuous improvement of methods are fundamental to the management of the organization and models of business processes should follow this evolution. To perform the merge of these models, by the transformation of one or more processes, or by merging of organizations, software analysts use the techniques available in the literature. However, frequently they are considered imprecise, by not ensuring the correct integration of models. Consequently, merging business processes models becomes a difficult, error prone task, since existing techniques create composite models difficult to understand based on graphs and generic notation that does not match to the industrial reality. Therefore, this study proposes a merging technique of business process models that combines in a single source, some of the most used techniques available in the literature, and supports merging of models directed to a notation widely known and used by organizations. Furthermore, it also proposes the implementation of a tool, based on this technique, which was created to define the similarity and support the integration of models in a semi-automatic way. Lastly, experimental studies were performed with analysts who solved six scenarios of merging models, both manually and with the help of this tool. The result showed that the proposed technique, in fact, improves the accuracy and reduces composition effort, providing cost savings and increased productivity.

The use of process models to support business analysts' idea-generation tasks has been a long-standing topic of interest in process improvement. We examine how two types of representations of organizational processes - textual and diagrammatic - assist analysts in developing innovative solutions to process-redesign tasks. The results of our study clarify the types of process-redesign ideas generated by analysts who work with text versus those who work with models. We find that the volume and originality of process-redesign ideas do not differ significantly but that appropriateness of ideas varies. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice in process improvement.

The concepts of processes and services can be used to structure both businesses and software systems. From a business perspective, the use of processes promises efficient management of organizations. From a software perspective, executable process descriptions provide a way to structure software systems according to the business process the systems should support. Furthermore, the concept of software services allows systems to be partitioned in a modular fashion, thereby enabling large-scale system integration on a technical level. By combining process descriptions with software services in service-based processes, it is feasible to address both business and more technical software needs. Aligning the business and software perspectives of processes and software services is, however, challenging, since implemented executable processes and software services need to cater for operational and strategic business needs as well as existing legacy software systems. In this thesis, several instruments are presented that aim at aiding the design and evolution of service-based processes. The aligning of operational business and software perspectives on process descriptions is addressed by the introduction of business and technical process model levels. These levels can be aligned by the use of a set of model transformations and associated transformation rules. Furthermore, the aligning is aided by introducing means for achieving flexibility on both the business and technical model levels. The development of service-based processes from a strategic business point of view is aided by the introduction of novel models and methods for goal-based design of software services. Taken together, the instruments can be used for the design and evolution of service-based processes. / QC 20100810 / REMS / Serviam

M.Com. (Business Management) / Risk management is an important factor in ensuring business and project success. Thus, risk management methodologies are constantly being developed and improved. In order to define the goals, specify the process and manage progress, it is necessary to have a clear view of the enterprise‟s current approach to risk, as well as a definition of the intended destination. Benchmarking offers the opportunity to determine the current maturity capability against agreed frameworks, and also provides a structured route to improvement. A generally accepted framework is needed in order for an organisation to benchmark its current maturity and capability in managing risk, and this framework should also assist in defining progress towards increased maturity. Being an assessment tool, a risk maturity model is designed to measure risk management capability and to provide objectives for improvement The purpose of the research is to identify, adapt and recommend a sound risk maturity model, together with an easily applicable and effective questionnaire for use to measure the risk capability maturity of a Life Insurer (“Liberty Life”). To achieve this aim, six risk management maturity models were identified through a literature review and the proposed model was further supported with long-term insurance specific attributes of risk management as advocated by leading corporate governance codes and regulations such as King III and the newly proposed Financial Services Board (FSB) Solvency Assessment and Management (SAM) regime. Despite the widening consensus on the value of risk management, effective implementations of risk processes into organisations are not common. The benefits of mature risk management have been discussed in Chapter 2. By adopting an exploratory approach, the researcher conducted a qualitative research project, in the form of an in-depth case study, on a multinational financial services organisation. Unstructured face-to-face interviews were held with senior executives and risk managers in order to gather data regarding what they perceive as key attributes, including acceptable measurement criteria, of a risk maturity model appropriate and effective for implementation in their organisation.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

This thesis is aimed on the business process management of semi-budgetary organizations in the Czech Republic. For description of the field of business process management, the work lists common definitions and important information that is linked to this area. Subsequently, there was described the specificity of public administration in the Czech Republic, taking into account the level of and ability to implement business process management in this area. The important part of this thesis is the analysis of assumptions, which should public organizations fulfill in order to implement business process management. Thesis focuses on business process modeling, both in terms of methodology and standards used, and from the perspective of adequate tools for creating business process models. The main focus of the work is on the consolidation of the business process models of semi-budgetary organizations simultaneous checked on a case study. Case study, which is part of the practical part of this thesis, is a modified description of the implemented project, which aimed to merge two semi-budgetary organizations, especially from the perspective of the consolidation process management and process models.