Visualizing the Process of Process Modeling with PPMCharts
This work addresses the need for researchers and practitioners in process modeling to analyze and improve modeling processes, though it is incremental as it builds on existing tools and focuses on visualization rather than new modeling techniques.
The paper tackles the problem of understanding how to create good process models by visualizing the process of process modeling (PPM) to graphically observe its characteristics. It results in a PPMChart Analysis plug-in for ProM that records modeling operations as event logs and generates graphical representations to discover patterns and provide configurable views on PPM.
In the quest for knowledge about how to make good process models, recent research focus is shifting from studying the quality of process models to studying the process of process modeling (often abbreviated as PPM) itself. This paper reports on our efforts to visualize this specific process in such a way that relevant characteristics of the modeling process can be observed graphically. By recording each modeling operation in a modeling process, one can build an event log that can be used as input for the PPMChart Analysis plug-in we implemented in ProM. The graphical representation this plug-in generates allows for the discovery of different patterns of the process of process modeling. It also provides different views on the process of process modeling (by configuring and filtering the charts).