Validation of Business Process Models through Interactively Enacted Simulation

Abstract

Business process models are nearly omnipresent in modern enterprises. Current research efforts attempt to include stakeholders in all phases of the business process lifecycle, as they possess valuable expert knowledge which is often hard to externalize. This paper examines the later phases of the design lifecycle, namely the validation of business process models. We examine the requirements on validation support and explore how these requirements can be met when aiming at the involvement of stakeholders inexperienced in modeling. We propose to use interactively enacted simulations for validation and present an empirical study conducted to assess whether such an approach can be realized both, conceptually and technically. Our results show interactively enacted simulation is a viable approach to model validation and in particular enables inexperienced modelers to contribute to such efforts.