A systematic literature review of process modeling guidelines and their empirical support

Diego Toralles Avila, Rubens Ideron dos Santos, Jan Mendling, Lucineia Heloisa Thom

ISSN: 1463-7154

Publication date: 6 November 2020

Abstract

Purpose

Process modeling guidelines are a valuable instrument for increasing the quality of process models. Since finding and selecting suitable guidelines are challenging, this paper aims to find and select suitable guidelines because they are scattered across the many studies of the literature. Also, not all of them are supported by empirical studies.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a systematic literature review to collect and analyze process modeling guidelines present in the literature and the empirical evidence that supports them.

Findings

The authors investigated a total of 793 articles and identified a total of 45 process modeling guidelines in five different categories. For each of these guidelines, the authors report empirical evidence together with corresponding measures, such as comprehension accuracy and error probability.

Originality/value

Compared to the prior literature reviews on process model quality and process modeling guidelines, this article extends current knowledge by analyzing the empirical evidence and variables associated with each guideline. This analysis provides guidance for practitioners and scholars on which guidelines to use while modeling a process and perform further research on.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This study was financed by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – Brasil (CAPES) – Finance Code 001. Diego Toralles Avila was a CNPq scholarship holder and currently is a CAPES scholarship holder through the Programa de Apoio à Pós-Graduação (PROAP).

Citation

Avila, D.T., dos Santos, R.I., Mendling, J. and Thom, L.H. (2020), “A systematic literature review of process modeling guidelines and their empirical support”, Business Process Management Journal, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-10-2019-0407 Download as .RIS

Link to the publication: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/BPMJ-10-2019-0407/full/html