A Process Variant Modeling Method Comparison: Experience Report

Various process variant modeling methods have been introduced in the literature to manage process diversity in a business context. In industrial settings, it is difficult to select a method suitable for the needs and limitations of the organization due to the limited number of examples and guidelines. In this paper, we report our experiences on variant modeling in a process management consultancy company. The company experienced difficulties in maintaining and reusing process definitions of their customers and decided to evaluate variant modeling methods as a solution. We selected two methods, the Decomposition Driven and the Provop, to develop variant models of seven software project management processes from five customers. We evaluated the results together with company experts. This study contributes to the field by providing real-life examples of two variant modeling methods, a comparison of the results with these methods and a guideline for choosing a method under comparable conditions.