How Much Language Is Enough? Theoretical and Practical Use of the Business Process Modeling Notation

The Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is an increasingly important standard for the graphical representation of processes and offers a wide range of modeling constructs. Not all of these constructs are equally important, as business analysts frequently use arbitrary subsets of BPMN. In this paper we investigate what these subsets are, and how they differ between academic, consulting, and general use of the language. We analyzed 120 BPMN diagrams using mathematical and statistical techniques. Our findings indicate that BPMN is used in groups of several, well-defined construct clusters, but less than 20% of its vocabulary is used regularly. While the average model contains just 9 different BPMN constructs, only a small agreed subset of BPMN has emerged. The usage frequency of both individual constructs and language subsets follow an exponential distribution, which indicates that BPMN users may treat it like a natural language.