Software Engineering Inspired Cost Estimation for Process Modelling

Authors: Felix Baumann, Aleksandar Milutinovic, Dieter Roller

Abstract:

Up to this point business process management projects in general and business process modelling projects in particular could not rely on a practical and scientifically validated method to estimate cost and effort. Especially the model development phase is not covered by a cost estimation method or model. Further phases of business process modelling starting with implementation are covered by initial solutions which are discussed in the literature. This article proposes a method of filling this gap by deriving a cost estimation method from available methods in similar domains namely software development or software engineering. Software development is regarded as closely similar to process modelling as we show. After the proposition of this method different ideas for further analysis and validation of the method are proposed. We derive this method from COCOMO II and Function Point which are established methods of effort estimation in the domain of software development. For this we lay out similarities of the software development process and the process of process modelling which is a phase of the Business Process Management life-cycle.

Keywords: Cost Estimation, Effort Estimation, Process Modelling, Business Process Management, COCOMO.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1111791

References:

[1] J. Freund and B. Rücker, Praxishandbuch BPMN 2.0, 3rd ed. München: Hanser, 2012.
[2] J. Horan, Ed., Schlüsselrolle CIO, ser. CIO Studienreihe. IBM Institute for Business Value, 2011.
[3] S. Müller, “Studienarbeit 2451- situationsanalyse: Bpm in deutschland,” Master’s thesis, Universität Stuttgart, 2014.
[4] P. Posluschny, Prozessmanagement. Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2012.
[5] V. Gruhn and R. Laue, “Komplexitätsmetriken für geschäftsprozessmodelle,” in Proceedings of the Modellierung 2006, H. C. e. a. Mayr, Ed. Bonn: Gesellschaft für Informatik, 2006, pp. 289–292.
[6] K. Kluza and G. J. Nalepa, “Proposal of square metrics for measuring business process model complexity,” in Computer Science and Information Systems (FedCSIS), 2012 Federated Conference on. IEEE, 2012, pp. 919–922.
[7] F. Leymann, “Managing business processes via workflow technology,” in Tutorial at VLDB Conference, Seattle, September 2011.
[8] B. Mutschler and M. Reichert, Understanding the Costs of Business Process Management Technology. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, pp. 157–194.
[9] A. Gadatsch, Grundkurs Geschäftsprozess-Management, 7th ed. Springer Vieweg, 2013.
[10] H. J. Schmelzer and W. Sesselmann, Geschäftsprozessmanagement in der Praxis, 6th ed. München: Hanser, 2008.
[11] M. Weske, Business Process Management - Concepts, Languages, Architectures, 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2012.
[12] T. Allweyer, BPMS: Einführung in Business Process Management-Systeme. BoD–Books on Demand, 2014.
[13] M. Baklizky, M. Fantinato, L. H. Thom, V. Sun, E. P. V. Prado, and P. Hung, “Business process points - a proposal to measure bpm projects,” in Proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Information Systems. ECIS 2013 Completed Research. Paper 2., 2013. (Online). Available: http://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2013_cr/2
[14] B. Marin and J. Quinteros, “A cosmic measurment procedure for bpmn diagrams,” The 26th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering, 2014.
[15] S. Mishra and C. Kumar, “Estimating development size and effort of business process service-oriented architecture applications,” in Systems and Informatics (ICSAI), 2014 2nd International Conference on. IEEE, 2014, pp. 1006–1011.
[16] E. Rolon, L. Sanchez, F. Garcia, F. Ruiz, M. Piattini, D. Caivano, and G. Visaggio, “Prediction models for bpmn usability and maintainability,” in Commerce and Enterprise Computing, 2009. CEC’09. IEEE Conference on. IEEE, 2009, pp. 383–390.
[17] V. Nissen, M. Petsch, F. Termer, and M. Möhring, “A cost calculation model for determining the cost of business process modelling projects,” Ilmenauer Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsinformatik, vol. 2013-01, April 2013.
[18] D. Çulha and A. Do˘gru, “Towards an agile methodology for business process development,” in S-BPM ONE-Scientific Research. Springer, 2014, pp. 133–142.
[19] C. Thiemich and F. Puhlmann, An Agile BPM Project Methodology. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2013, vol. 8094, pp. 291–306. (Online). Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40176-3_25
[20] T. Allweyer, “Das business process maturity model (bpmm) der omg,” November 2007. (Online). Available: http://www.kurze-prozesse.de/ 2007/11/08/das-business-process-maturity-model-bpmm-der-omg/
[21] D. M. Fisher, “The business process maturity model. a practical approach for identifying opportunities for optimization,” Business Process Trends, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 11–15, 2004.
[22] J. Cardoso, “Evaluating the process control-flow complexity measure,” in Web Services, 2005. ICWS 2005. Proceedings. 2005 IEEE International Conference on. IEEE, 2005.
[23] S. Jakoubi and S. Tjoa, “A reference model for risk-aware business process management,” in Risks and Security of Internet and Systems (CRiSIS), 2009 Fourth International Conference on. IEEE, 2009, pp. 82–89.
[24] H. Lhannaoui, M. I. Kabbaj, and Z. Bakkoury, “Towards an approach to improve business process models using risk management techniques,” in Intelligent Systems: Theories and Applications (SITA), 2013 8th International Conference on. IEEE, 2013, pp. 1–8.
[25] R. Meziani and I. Saleh, “Towards a collaborative business process management methodology,” in Multimedia Computing and Systems (ICMCS), 2011 International Conference on. IEEE, 2011, pp. 1–6.
[26] W. M. Van Der Aalst, A. H. Ter Hofstede, and M. Weske, “Business process management: A survey,” in Business Process Management. Springer, 2003, pp. 1019–1019.
[27] A. Komus, BPM Best Practice - Wie führende Unternehmen ihre Geschäftsprozesse managen, 2011th ed. Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer-Verlag, 2011.
[28] J. Mendling, H. A. Reijers, and W. M. van der Aalst, “Seven process modeling guidelines (7pmg),” Information and Software Technology, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 127–136, 2010.
[29] M. Hinsch, Die neue ISO 9001:2015 - Status, Neuerungen und Perspektiven -, 1st ed. Berlin Heidelberg New York: Springer-Verlag, 2014.
[30] T. van Lessen, D. Lübke, and J. Nitzsche, Geschäftsprozesse automatisieren mit BPEL. Heidelberg: dpunkt Verlag, 2011. (Online). Available: http://taval.de/publications/BOOK-2011-01
[31] C. Jones, Estimating Software Costs : Bringing Realism to Estimating - Bringing Realism to Estimating, 2nd ed. Madison: McGraw Hill Professional, 2007.
[32] T. Noth and M. Kretzschmar, Aufwandschätzung von DV-Projekten: Darstellung u. Praxisvergleich d. wichtigsten Verfahren, 2nd ed. Berlin: Springer, 1986.
[33] G. Karner, “Resource estimation for objectory projects,” Objective Systems SF AB, vol. 17, 1993.
[34] S. Frohnhoff, “Use case points 3.0 : Implementierung einer use case bezogenen schätzmethode für das software-engineering betrieblicher informationssysteme,” Ph.D. dissertation, Universität Paderborn, 2009.
[35] B. W. Boehm, Software Engineering Economics. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1981.
[36] B. Boehm and E. Harrowitz, Software Cost Estimation with Cocomo II. London: Prentice Hall, 2000.
[37] OMG, “Bpmn 2.0 specification.” (Online). Available: http://www.omg. org/spec/BPMN/2.0/
[38] B. W. Boehm, “Cocomo ii model definition manual,” 2000.
[Online]. Available: http://sunset.usc.edu/research/COCOMOII/Docs/ modelman.pdf
[39] V. Khatibi, D. N. A. Jawawi, S. Z. M. Hashim, and E. Khatibi, “Neural networks for accurate estimation of software metrics,” IJACT: International Journal of Advancements in Computing Technology, vol. 3, no. 10, pp. 54 – 66, 2011.
[40] C. Symons, “Function point analysis: difficulties and improvements,” Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 2–11, Jan 1988.
[41] H. W. Wieczorrek and P. Mertens, Eds., Aufwandsschätzung in IT-Projekten. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 205–223. (Online). Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-48472-1_8
[42] IBM, Die Function Point Methode: eine Schätzmethode für IS-Anwendungs-Projekte, ser. IBM Form. IBM Deutschland GmbH, 1985. (Online). Available: https://books.google.de/books?id= dxzWPgAACAAJ
[43] V. Khatibi and D. N. A. Jawawi, “Software cost estimation methods: A review,” Journal of Emerging Trends in Computing and Information Sciences, vol. 4, no. 12, pp. 21–29, December 2011.
[44] M. Wieschollek, “Aufwandsschätzung für die prozessmodellierung.” (Online). Available: http://www.bpm-plus.de/2013/03/ aufwandsschatzung-fur-die-prozessmodellierung/
[45] B. Boehm and W. Royce, “Ada cocomo and the ada process model,” in Proceedings. Third COCOMO Users Group Meeting, SEI, 1987.
[46] B. W. Boehm, B. Clark, E. Horowitz, C. Westland, R. Madachy, and R. Selby, “Cost models for future software life cycle processes: Cocomo 2.0,” in ANNALS OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, 1995, pp. 57–94.