Determining the effect of tangible business process modeling

Abstract

We have created a haptic toolkit that people can use to map and discuss their working procedures. We call it tangible business process modeling (t.BPM). Process modeling is an approach to capture work items, their order constraints, the data processed and people responsible in a graphical model. Typically, experts create these models using software tools. Domain experts are questioned but passive when the model is created. Our approach uses a set of plastic tiles and whiteboard markers for modeling. Thereby, we can engage novice users into shaping their processes at the table. In the first year, we iterated towards the solution. While we are convinced that our approach yields advances, scientific investigation was yet missing. In this year, we have conducted a controlled experiment that compares t.BPM to structured interviews. We found that people have more fun, learn more, do more reviews and corrections with t.BPM. Finally, people take more time to think and talk about their processes. In this chapter, we outline our approach and research agenda.We present the experiment setup and results. Finally, we explain our next steps towards method development.