Lost in Business Process Model Translations: How a Structured Approach Helps to Identify Conceptual Mismatch

Abstract

Often, different process models are employed in different phases of the BPM life cycle, each providing a different approach for capturing business processes. Efforts have been undertaken to overcome the disintegration of process models by providing complementary standards for design and execution. However, this claim has not yet been fulfilled. A prominent example is the seemingly complementary nature of BPMN and BPEL. The mapping between these process modeling languages is still unsolved and poses challenges to practitioners and academics. This chapter discusses the problem of translating between process modeling languages. We argue that there is conceptual mismatch between modeling languages stemming from various perspectives of the business-process management life cycle that must be identified for seamless integration. While we focus on the popular case of BPMN vs. BPEL, our approach is generic and can be utilized as a guiding framework for identifying conceptual mismatch between other process modeling languages.