How To Model With: Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) v1.0 1 • A standard notation to describe Business processes with a Business Process Diagram (BPD) • The idear is to create a common "language" and a unification of the graphical elements used to create a workflow • BPMN is used in both internal business processes and collaborative B2B processes • Modeling of business processes often starts by taking the overall activities and splitting those up into smaller activities. Today BPMN is maintained and updated by the Object Management Group. Objects are the building blocks of BPMN. Enables easy development of diagrams that will look familiar to others familiar with Business Process Diagrams. Four main categories of objects • Flow Objects (Activities, Events, Gateway) • Connecting Objects (Sequence Flow, Message Flow, Association) • Swimlanes (Pools, Lanes) • Artifacts (Data objekt, Group, Annotation) • Events. o Changes the flow of a process. Normally has either a trigger or a result. o 3 types of events; Start, Intermediate and End Start Intermediate End • Activity o Activities is a generic term for work within a company o Activities are either "Tasks" or "Sub-Processes" o Represented by rounded-corner rectangle Activity • Gateway o Controls the sequence flow o Controls both divergence and convergence (Forking and Merging) Gateway • Sequence Flow o Represented with a solid line with a solid arrowhead o Shows the sequence which activities will be performed Sequence Flow • Message Flow o Represented by a dashed line with an open arrowhead o Show the flow of messages between two separate Business Participants Message Flow • Association o Represented by a dotted line with a line arrowhead o Used to associate data, text and other artifacts with flow objects o Show the inputs and outputs of activities Association Lane Lane Pool • Pool o Represent a participant in a process o Also used as a container for partitioning a set of activities • Lane o Sub-partition within a pool o Used to organize and categorize activities • Data Object o Data object is a mechanism to show how data is needed or generated by activities o Data object connect with activities through associations Name • Group o Represented by rounded corner rectangle drawn with a dashed line o Groups can be used to analyse and dokument purposes, but makes no difference to the sequence flow Group • Annotation o A mechanism for a modeller to provide additional text information with a BPD Extra text Annotation 15 • Version 1.0 was published back in May 2004 • Version 2.0 is under preparation and is scheduled to be released in June 2010 • Some of the suggestions for 2.0 are: o Preparation of a more coherent language with Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM). o Facilitate the exchange of data between different process modeling tools. o Be able to show different perspectives of a model and let the user focus on specific problems. o Better handling of XML • BPMN creates a continuality around the graphic • Makes it easier to exchange BPD between companies • BPMN is good at describing business processes because it is what it is designed to do References • http://www.BPMN.org • Introduction to BPMN by Stephen A. White - IBM, May 2004