Why do Use Cases fall short for business process modelling, and what should replace them?
UML became the dominant notation for object-oriented analysis and design, but its Use Case approach to requirements capture has a fundamental weakness: it pushes analysts toward a system-centric view too early, and lacks the constructs to model complete business processes — including manual activities, parallel flows, costs, timing, resource consumption, and organisational responsibility. For organisations using object technology to support enterprise engineering and business process reengineering, this gap is a serious practical problem.
This paper presents a process modelling notation developed by Graham McLeod as a direct response to these shortcomings. Building on earlier extensions to the Martin/Odell OOA/D methods and incorporating value chain and business reengineering concepts, the notation forms a superset of UML's Use Cases and Activity Diagrams. It supports modelling from a high-level stakeholder and architecture view, through detailed business process analysis, down to rigorous system-level specifications — all within a single, consistent notation that avoids the fidelity loss that typically occurs when translating between model types.
Validated through use in teaching, consulting, and a supporting CASE tool, the approach enables richer business engineering, direct comparison of process alternatives, validation against the domain object model, and a natural mapping to layered design architectures — making it a practical and theoretically grounded alternative to standard UML practice.
Pages: 16
Originally published as a conference paper by Graham McLeod at the EMMSAD 2000 workshop (co-located with CAiSE), 2000.