Declarative business process modelling: principles and modelling languages

The business process literature has proposed a multitude of business process modelling approaches or paradigms, each in response to a different business process type with a unique set of requirements. Two polar paradigms, i.e. the imperative and the declarative paradigm, appear to define the extreme positions on the paradigm spectrum. While imperative approaches focus on explicitly defining how an organisational goal should be reached, the declarative approaches focus on the directives, policies and regulations restricting the potential ways to achieve the organisational goal. In between, a variety of hybrid-paradigms can be distinguished, e.g. the advanced and adaptive case management. This article focuses on the less-exposed declarative approach on process modelling. An outline of the declarative process modelling and the modelling approaches is presented, followed by an overview of the observed declarative process modelling principles and an evaluation of the declarative process modelling approaches.