The Need for Business Vocabularies in BPM or ISD Related Activities: Survey Based Study

Inclusion of business vocabularies (BVs), also referred to as glossaries, into information systems development (ISD) activities is a growing trend, yet this process is often lacking objective feedback and consolidated opinion from the industry and experts. In an effort to fill this gap, the two-stage research study with people working in the fields of information systems development or business process management (BPM) has been carried out. In this paper, key results of the questionnaire-based exploratory survey have been presented. Results make it relatively safe to presume that the BPM/ISD community generally supports the developments in the field of business vocabulary integration and standardization. On the other hand, results reveal that existing standards like SBVR are not widely known, and the BVs themselves are rarely considered a necessary element of the project. These findings could serve as a solid proof that research in this area, as well as development of working solutions, especially CASE tool integrations, should be intensified.