Empirical Study of Applying the DEMO Method for Improving BPMN Process Models in Academic Environment

Abstract

Since 2009 approximately 500 business processes have been mapped and modelled at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague. BPMN has been selected as the most suitable notation for the mapping purposes at the beginning of the project. The mapping has been done mostly by students from the Business Process Center of Excellence, a part of Faculty's Dean's office since 2009. This paper contains results of an experiment focused on possibilities of improving quality of existing results using the DEMO methodology. Next, we were interested in ways of enhancing students' skills of process modelling to create unambiguous and consistent models as a“result of a DEMO Bachelor course. Both students from the Center of Excellence and ordinary university students passed the DEMO Bachelor course of Enterprise Engineering Institute and their were given assignments of devising ontological analysis of the existing BPMN models. The results of the experiment are discussed in the paper, as well as considerations about future steps.