A system for modeling a workflow, said workflow including activities, said workflow modeling a business process, said system comprising: a memory area for storing a plurality of activities and a plurality of palette elements each corresponding to at least one of the plurality of activities; a display area for displaying the plurality of palette elements stored in the memory area; a processor configured to execute computer-executable instructions for: receiving a plurality of graphical elements as input by a user via an interface; displaying the received plurality of graphical elements in the display area; receiving structure information as input by the user via the interface, said received structure information being associated with the received plurality of graphical elements; arranging the displayed plurality of graphical elements in the display area in accordance with the received structure information; mapping each of the plurality of graphical elements to one of the plurality of palette elements stored in the memory area; creating a workflow as a function of the activities corresponding to the mapped palette elements and the received structure information; and executing the created workflow and editing the workflow by the user while the workflow is being executed, without the need for recompiling the workflow, wherein a running instance of the workflow is serialized into an extensible orchestration markup language, XOML, format and then brought into an authoring environment for editing the workflow while the workflow is running, wherein metadata of activities is manipulated at runtime, and wherein the serialized XOML format is adapted to be deserialized, and wherein semantic checks are stronger at runtime than semantic checks being performed at compile-time. a memory area for storing a plurality of activities and a plurality of palette elements each corresponding to at least one of the plurality of activities; a display area for displaying the plurality of palette elements stored in the memory area; a processor configured to execute computer-executable instructions for: receiving a plurality of graphical elements as input by a user via an interface; displaying the received plurality of graphical elements in the display area; receiving structure information as input by the user via the interface, said received structure information being associated with the received plurality of graphical elements; arranging the displayed plurality of graphical elements in the display area in accordance with the received structure information; mapping each of the plurality of graphical elements to one of the plurality of palette elements stored in the memory area; creating a workflow as a function of the activities corresponding to the mapped palette elements and the received structure information; and executing the created workflow and editing the workflow by the user while the workflow is being executed, without the need for recompiling the workflow, wherein a running instance of the workflow is serialized into an extensible orchestration markup language, XOML, format and then brought into an authoring environment for editing the workflow while the workflow is running, wherein metadata of activities is manipulated at runtime, and wherein the serialized XOML format is adapted to be deserialized, and wherein semantic checks are stronger at runtime than semantic checks being performed at compile-time. receiving a plurality of graphical elements as input by a user via an interface; displaying the received plurality of graphical elements in the display area; receiving structure information as input by the user via the interface, said received structure information being associated with the received plurality of graphical elements; arranging the displayed plurality of graphical elements in the display area in accordance with the received structure information; mapping each of the plurality of graphical elements to one of the plurality of palette elements stored in the memory area; creating a workflow as a function of the activities corresponding to the mapped palette elements and the received structure information; and executing the created workflow and editing the workflow by the user while the workflow is being executed, without the need for recompiling the workflow, wherein a running instance of the workflow is serialized into an extensible orchestration markup language, XOML, format and then brought into an authoring environment for editing the workflow while the workflow is running, wherein metadata of activities is manipulated at runtime, and wherein the serialized XOML format is adapted to be deserialized, and wherein semantic checks are stronger at runtime than semantic checks being performed at compile-time.