RBPMN - The Power of Roles for Business Process Modeling with BPMN

Abstract

Developing a system for an interconnected world presents various challenges, from demanding disrupting technologies to a higher context-sensitivity. To solve these challenges, we researched the application of a modern understanding of roles for business process modeling. Roles are an approach with a long history in business process models and a proven value in other modeling perspectives. They provide multiple benefits, such as unifying structural and behavioral modeling and a rich adaptation of reference models. Furthermore, as we prove in this paper, a modern understanding of roles can be implemented as a standard conform BPMN extension. Based on these benefits, we chose a design science approach to develop the role-based BPMN extension RBPMN, which we present in this paper. We demonstrate how RBPMN unleashes the power of roles to overcome modern business process modeling challenges and briefly evaluate our approach. The use of roles with a coherent understanding at every abstraction level supports modelers and engineers equally in developing systems for an interconnected ever-changing world.