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analysis to a category. Ideally, more than one coder performs the content analysis in
order to assure inter-coder reliability of findings. There are tools that support the
qualitative analysis of text material, e.g. the QDA Miner [8]. Such tools offer func-
tionalities like coding retrieval, coding frequency, and coding co-occurrences. Exist-
ing experiments support automation of the analysis in order to reduce the high manual
coding effort of large text material [9].
3.2 Qualitative Content Analysis in the Context of Business Processes
In the context of business process modeling, the qualitative context analysis offers a
possibility to analyze textual material, e.g. interviews and workshop protocols col-
lected during the phase of eliciting process information, in a structural and traceable
way. Traceability is supported by coding text material, for example process views of
individuals, or “process stories”, and thus to identify, tag, and cluster essential process
elements. Some questions that can be answered with the qualitative content analysis
particularly in the context of business processes are:
•
What are the tasks and activities of a particular process view?
•
What tasks and activities can be subsumed according to their meaning?
•
What persons and roles are involved in particular tasks and activities?
•
What tools are used to perform particular tasks and activities?
•
What kind of data is transferred, where, why and how?
•
Are there decisions in the process view?
•
Are there activities performed by several persons and roles?
•
Are there activities in the process view that are delegated?
Results of the qualitative content analysis can be interpreted in several ways, but the
final output of our method is always a business process model. The results may be
manually modeled (resulting in process models, or process scenarios [1]), or further
translated into logs. The latter alternative is described in more detail in Section 4.
3.3 Challenges of Qualitatively Analyzing To-Do's
In this section we address challenges the designers face when they examine To-do's
of individual process members that belong to a particular process under investigation.
We propose the elicitation of process information by means of To-do lists of individ-
ual process members. Several preconditions need to be considered when a qualitative
content analysis of To-do's of individual process members is conducted.
Precondition 1: Clearly define the process under investigation.
Precondition 2: Identify at least one process member.
Precondition 3: Collect information: Ask process participants in individual exchange to list their To-do's in
the process of investigation. Ask for the usual case and for special cases.
Precondition 4: Capture information. If necessary transform information into text.
The procedure of examining To-do's of individual process members based on the
content analysis is described in the following. We discuss the steps specifically im-
portant for extracting business process models in more detail in Sections 3.4-3.6.
