Process Modeling and Analysis

Abstract

The plethora of process modeling notations available today illustrates the relevance of process modeling. Some organizations may use only informal process models to structure discussions and to document procedures. However, organizations that operate at a higher BPM maturity level use models that can be analyzed and used to enact operational processes. Today, most process models are made by hand and are not based on a rigorous analysis of existing process data. This chapter serves two purposes. On the one hand, preliminaries are presented that will be used in later chapters. For example, various process modeling notations are introduced and some analysis techniques are reviewed. On the other hand, the chapter reveals the limitations of classical approaches, thus motivating the need for process mining.