Opportunities and constraints: the current struggle with BPMN

Purpose – The business process modeling notation (BPMN) is an increasingly important standard for process modeling and has enjoyed high levels of attention in business practice. In this paper, experiences are shared from several research projects investigating the uptake and user acceptance of BPMN by analysts world‐wide. This personal viewpoint aims to offer a number of implications for business process management (BPM) practice and seeks to stimulate and guide further research and other developments in this area. Design/methodology/approach – This paper offers a personal viewpoint based on the experiences and findings gathered from survey research and interviews on the use of BPMN. While details on research execution are mostly omitted, references are provided to guide the interested reader to the methodology used in the original studies. Findings – First, statistics are provided on the usage of BPMN by process modelers world‐wide. Amongst others, it is shown that the high interest in BPMN has created a massive demand for BPM education and training. Second, a number of usage problems related to the practice of process modeling with BPMN are described and suggestions are provided as to how organizations have developed workarounds for these problems. Third, it is suggested that BPMN is over‐engineered and more insights into practical usage are needed for future development. Research limitations/implications – While being based on empirical research, a limitation of this paper is the lack of detail about research execution; however, references are provided. The paper offers a personal viewpoint on the state of current and future practice of process modeling and discusses a range of implications for future research. Practical implications – The paper describes a number of commonly encountered pitfalls when modeling processes with BPMN. It also provides directions for the organizational implementation and future development of process modeling as well as implications for various BPMN stakeholders. Originality/value – This viewpoint is derived from some of very few empirical studies on the usage of BPMN specifically and BPM standards generally.