TY - JOUR
T1 - Toward a methodology for case modeling
AU - Hewelt, Marcin
AU - Pufahl, Luise
AU - Mandal, Sankalita
AU - Wolff, Felix
AU - Weske, Mathias
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2020/11/1
Y1 - 2020/11/1
N2 - Case management is increasingly used to capture and enact flexible, knowledge-intensive processes in organizations. None of the existing case management approaches provides a methodology for case model elicitation and modeling. In this contribution, three modeling methods for fragment-based case management are presented: one which focuses on the control-flow view, the process-first method, one which has a data-centric view, the object lifecycle-first method, and one which focuses on the goals of a case, the goals-first method. Following the design science process, each of the three methods was evaluated in two case modeling workshops with two different stakeholder groups (PhD students and secretaries), resulting in a total of six workshops. All participants were novices in case management and most of them as well in process modeling. The results indicate that the process-first method can be quickly learned by novices and it might be useful for scenarios where the focus is on the main process with some degree of flexibility. The object lifecycle-first method yields more flexible and consistent case models, but requires a higher initial modeling effort, as the lifecycle of the main case object has to be designed first. The goals-first method leads to a detailed and consistent case model and additionally provides, by means of the defined goals, a checklist what needs to be done for a case. This method requires in addition to the process modeling notation another model type, the goal hierarchy, and therefore is less suited for novice modelers, as found by the workshop results.
AB - Case management is increasingly used to capture and enact flexible, knowledge-intensive processes in organizations. None of the existing case management approaches provides a methodology for case model elicitation and modeling. In this contribution, three modeling methods for fragment-based case management are presented: one which focuses on the control-flow view, the process-first method, one which has a data-centric view, the object lifecycle-first method, and one which focuses on the goals of a case, the goals-first method. Following the design science process, each of the three methods was evaluated in two case modeling workshops with two different stakeholder groups (PhD students and secretaries), resulting in a total of six workshops. All participants were novices in case management and most of them as well in process modeling. The results indicate that the process-first method can be quickly learned by novices and it might be useful for scenarios where the focus is on the main process with some degree of flexibility. The object lifecycle-first method yields more flexible and consistent case models, but requires a higher initial modeling effort, as the lifecycle of the main case object has to be designed first. The goals-first method leads to a detailed and consistent case model and additionally provides, by means of the defined goals, a checklist what needs to be done for a case. This method requires in addition to the process modeling notation another model type, the goal hierarchy, and therefore is less suited for novice modelers, as found by the workshop results.
KW - Case management
KW - Goal modeling
KW - Object lifecycle
KW - Process elicitation
KW - Process modeling
KW - t.BPM
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85074861132&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10270-019-00766-5
DO - 10.1007/s10270-019-00766-5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074861132
SN - 1619-1366
VL - 19
SP - 1367
EP - 1393
JO - Software and Systems Modeling
JF - Software and Systems Modeling
IS - 6
ER -