measuring method complexity of the case management modeling and notation (cmmn)

Measuring Method Complexity

of the

Case Management Modeling & Notation

Mike A. Marin, Hugo Lotriet, John A. Van Der Poll

University of South Africa

SAICSIT 2014

October 1, 2014

Leriba Lodge, Centurion,

Gauteng, South Africa

1 SAICSIT 2014 Centurion, South Africa

Outline • Motivation

• Business Process Management (BPM)

• Case Management Modeling and Notation

• Methodology

• Related Work

• CMMN Analysis

• Results

• Summary

• Future Work

SAICSIT 2014 Centurion, South Africa 2

Motivation

• There are multiple process notations to choose from but which

one should be used for a particular project is left to the user

− Complexity of the notation method is just one factor to consider

among others

• Try to understand CMMN method complexity in the context of

other process notations


Business Process Management (BPM)

• BPM technology is widely used by businesses

− Describes how a business process should be executed

− It automate business process in the enterprise

• Several notations

− Focused on three specific versions of

• Business process management and notation (BPMN)

− Multiple dialects

• Unified modeling language (UML) Activity Diagrams

• Event-driven process chain (EPC)


The same process model in three notations

BPMN UML Activity Diagram EPC

Examples taken from Korherr, B.

Business Process Modeling – Languages,

Goals, and Variabilities. PhD thesis. 2008. 5 SAICSIT 2014 Centurion, South Africa

Case Management Modeling and Notation (CMMN)

• Version 1.0 released in May 2014

− Created by the object management group

(OMG)

• Notation

− Compatible with BPMN

− Diamonds represent guards (pre-conditions)

− Rounded rectangles represent tasks

• Declarative

− Notation based on business artifacts with

guard-stage-milestone

This model is semantically

equivalent to the example in

the previous slide. 6 SAICSIT 2014 Centurion, South Africa

Differences between CMMN & BPMN Most BPM notations CMMN

Procedural Declarative

Process centric Data centric

Arcs describe the sequence No predefined sequence

Guided work

(head down workers)

Enables workers

(knowledge workers)

Everything is modeled Not everything is modeled

Page 6

CMMN was designed to be complementary to BPMN


Methodology

• Used the meta-model method complexity metrics introduces by

Rossi and Brinkkemper in 1999.

− The methods to be compared should be described by a meta-model

• Rossi and Brinkkemper used the object, property, relationship, role (OPRR)

modeling language as the base meta-model

• All the other studies (including ours) used UML

− Based on counting objects, properties, and relationships and using them as

dimensions in a three dimensional space, the cumulative method complexity

is calculated as a vector in that space

• Requires a clear and consistent counting protocol

− Developed a set of counting principles


Related Work

• Previous studies on process model method complexity have been

conducted, including

− Multiple dialects of BPMN 1.2

• Indulska, Muehlen, & Recker (2009) Measuring Method Complexity: The Case

of the Business Process Modeling Notation.

− Compares UML Activity Diagrams to BPMN 1.2

• Recker, zur Muehlen, Siau, Erickson, & Indulska (2009) Measuring method

complexity: UML versus BPMN

− UML 1.4 including Activity Diagrams

• Siau, & Cao (2002) How Complex is the Unified Modeling Language?

• All these studies used the meta-model method complexity metrics

by Rossi and Brinkkemper in 1999


Counting principles

• Developed a set of counting principles for UML based on the

work of Indulska, Muehlen, & Recker (2009), taking into account

− Enumerations

− Abstract classes

− References between classes

− Internal tool generated properties that are never observed by the users


Relationships in CMMN

• The notation provides a single connector (dashed line), which is

used in two situations

− Optionally to indicate event propagation

• Represented in the meta-model by the onPart

(one abstract class and two concrete classes)

− Expanded planning table in a human task

• With no clear meta-model representation, because planning tables can be

associated with stages


CMMN analysis

• Using the counting principles and the CMMN specification that

describes its meta-model extracted

− 39 objects

− 4 relationships

− 28 properties

• Removed from the counts 11 tool-generated properties

• For example, Id, exporter, exporterVersion, expressionLanguage, etc.


Method Complexity Comparison

Methods Objects Relationships Properties Cumulative

Complexity

BPMN 1.2 90 6 143 169.07

BPMN 1.2 DoD 59 4 112 126.65

BPMN 1.2 Case Study 36 5 81 88.78

BPMN 1.2 Frequent Use 21 4 59 62.75

CMMN 1.0 39 4 28 48.18

EPC 15 5 11 19.26

UML 1.4 Activity diagrams 8 5 6 11.18


Future Work • The meta-model method complexity metrics introduces by Rossi

and Brinkkemper in 1999 must be calibrated for UML

− Rossi and Brinkkemper used OPRR, which is simpler than UML

− UML is the most common modeling notation currently used to describe

software standards

− A comprehensive counting protocol for UML needs to be created

• This study should be extended to the newer versions of BPMN,

UML Activity Diagram, and EPC

− BPMN 1.2 had a single technique while BPMN 2.0 introduces multiple

techniques

• Process diagrams, collaboration diagrams, conversation diagrams, and

choreography diagrams

• Empirical validation of this research should also be conducted


Summary

• Used the meta-model method complexity metrics introduces by

Rossi and Brinkkemper to analyze CMMN

• Compared the results to previous work on BPMN 1.2, UML 1.4,

and EPC by Indulska, Muehlen, & Recker (2009), Recker, zur

Muehlen, Siau, Erickson, & Indulska (2009), and Siau, & Cao

(2002)

• The results indicate that CMMN compares favorably to BPMN


Questions

& Comments


measuring method complexity of the case management modeling and notation (cmmn)

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