My guest appearance will include about an hour of lecture. I will be discussing multi-tier process design and the Process Modeling Framework (PMF). Up until this point the students have been mostly working in two dimensions. The PMF adds another dimension of detail which takes into consideration the organization where the process will be performed. Most process diagrams focus on who does what, and are divided into swimlanes. This is fine for simple diagrams, but in the real world it’s not that simple. There are politics involved, different owners of different parts of the diagram, and the need to change some parts independently of others. So my intent for this event at GSU is to inspire business students to look beyond the people who do the work, and start to look for the why it’s done, in the context of the larger organization.

Following the lecture presentation I’m going to do a Q&A session and a demonstration of the Process Modeling Framework in action.

- Rick Geneva

The other trend we are seeing more of in this decade is the use of more events, and less tasks. A task that says that something happened is not a task at all; it’s an event.   To be a task it has to be something that is performed by a person, system, or process.  One could argue that everything is performed somehow, so everything is a task.  So let me ask you this:  Is it a task for the weather when it rains?  Is it a task for the highway that traffic is backed up?   Is it a task for the stock market when the NASDAQ drops by 100 points?    If I can’t put a performer to the task, it can’t be a task.



Events can basically do two things: start activity or interrupt activity.  The weather changed, so what are you going to do about it?  The traffic is bad, so maybe try another route?   The stock market is down, so maybe you should buy stocks (unlike the herds of people who sell every time there is a jitter in the market).

Condition or event?

You could also argue that the bad weather is a condition, not an event, and you might be right. But what caused the weather to be bad?   It was likely an event.  And when the condition exists, is that not an event?  The BPMN specification says that a condition is a category of event.   There are two types of condition events; start and intermediate.   As stated above, an event can either initiate activity, or interrupt activity.  Also in the BPMN 2.0 specification we have the new non-interrupting start and intermediate variations of the condition event.  These shapes still serve the same purpose, but also add context to where they can be used.   For example, an intermediate non-interrupting shape is essentially a means to start an activity or flow that is relevant to the subprocess the event is attached to.

In the world of event processing you have essentially two things; events and conditions.  Conditions describe a combination of one or more events.  For example, it’s raining outside and the traffic is terrible.  This is a condition that possibly the weather caused the terrible traffic.  Although, one could argue that all of the cars are causing the weather to get worse (global warming). But that’s another topic entirely.   The two conditions combined of traffic and weather cause an event of something I was looking for, and the conditions are correlated as an event in time.  Weather can be bad on its own, and so can traffic.  The two are not necessarily connected until a stream of events (which we could also call facts) are correlated. For example, a weather report in combination with an emergency dispatch of a car hydroplaning due to excessive water on the road.   With respect to both of these events occurring within a window of time, a condition is born.

Conditions act as a filter of events.  Billions of trillions of events occur every millisecond.  But obviously we are not interested in all events; only the ones that are relevant to our business process activity.  When I figure out a way to filter the events down to something interesting then I have a “condition event”.  In other words, the billions of events have been aggregated down to just one single event that is important to my process.

BPM: meet CEP.  CEP: meet BPM.

Now that introductions are made, let’s talk about what they are and why they are both BPM and CEP are very important and relevant in this decade.


BPM was not designed to handle billions of events.  The BPMN notation is far too simple to handle the sophistication of monitoring millions of stock ticker streams, or monitoring millions of cars per day travelling on a highway.  The individual events are so insignificant that they go largely unnoticed by the larger business processes that everyone is familiar with.  Up until last decade we’ve simply called this an application and didn’t bother modeling it.  But now that Complex Event Processing (CEP) is coming of age, there is a new approach emerging in process modeling that efficiently handles complex events.
Up until recently I honestly couldn’t figure out how to use the condition event in a real-world process model.  The difference is that lately I’ve been experimenting with complex event processing concepts.  Suddenly I realized that a condition is the result of a complex event, then it was easy to put conditional events everywhere.

The job of the complex event system is filter through millions or even billions of events per second and find something interesting that I might want to act upon.  Once captured, this event causes a so-called complex event.  So is it an event or a condition?  Why not a condition event?    This led to my new nickname for the CEP acronym.  Instead of calling it “complex” I call it “conditional event processing”.  I wonder if this will catch on?   Probably not, but at least this might help you make sense of all this.


When CEP generates an event, BPM decides what to do with it.  There are two basic use cases here; you can send the event to a process participant, or the BPM system can further aggregate the condition into a decision of whether or not to take action.  For example, a condition event is detected, which causes a flow into a rule, which determines that either no action is required, or an activity should be routed to a participant.   However, if either one of these paths are taken too often, this is yet again another condition that could be used.  For example, too many condition events are causing too many people tasks, and the organization is overloaded with activity.  This overload condition can cause a feedback to the CEP system to relax the thresholds in which it triggers its complex events.   This is an environment where BPM and CEP help each other do what they do best.

Even Olympic size pools only have a limited number of lanes.

I know that if I suggest that swimlanes will be a thing of the past I’ll never hear the end of it.  So go ahead and start your comments now because yes, I’m about to go there.  I’m not saying we’ll see our friend the swimlane disappear anytime soon.  But I am saying that swimlanes are becoming less relevant.  In an event based world, we don’t necessarily have a performer of a task until runtime.  I don’t know who is going to do what.  So why would I model my process in a way that assumes a particular person is doing something?


Swimlanes have their place.  I stand by my advice that if you have more than five lanes in a pool you seriously need to stop and think about what you are doing.  Also, if you have more than five pools in a diagram, a problem should leap off the page and smack you in the face.  Organizations are not flat like this, and in practice, more than 5 roles would be unmanageable.  Instead, a hierarchy exists to manage the complexity.  So what I’m suggesting here is to select process participants that are more in line with how the organization works.


If you have too much activity happening in one place (a diagram) it could be best described as chaos.   Chaos is complex, and there are likely to be way too many events to process with BPM, or draw with BPMN.  You cannot possibly draw all of the events and conditions that might occur in a diagram that has more than 5 or 6 participants.  Likewise, for a single participant, if you are subdividing the role into many lanes there are likely way too many events to handle (too much participation for one participant).  So why not try the event approach instead?

Understanding complexity, events, conditions, and process activity

For better understanding, let’s take a look at a complexity analogy.  Imagine a large, crowded room full of people having a formal dinner evening.   The attendees (participants) walk around the room introducing themselves to others, and conversations begin. As the conversations increase, the noise increases, and you can no longer hear a conversation more than a meter or two from where you are standing.  A simple task such as getting to the dinner buffet is interrupted by hundreds of events; people bumping into you and trying to cut line ahead of you.  As a participant in this dinner process, if you happen to notice it’s getting quiet in the room, it might be a good idea to stop shouting at the top of your voice because someone probably has an announcement to make.  Or, if you happen to notice everyone running to the exit, maybe you should go too.  There might be a fire.

The point to this analogy is that most of the dinner evening was not planned.  Instead, it was a series of events triggering micro processes.  The overall objective of socializing, rubbing elbows with the important people in the room, and having a good time was achieved.  Everything else was random occurrence.  But even in the randomness there is order and process. For example, everyone got in line when it was time for the dinner buffet, and the other agenda items occurred according to schedule.

The basics of management theory state that the more people are involved in a meeting or gathering, the less productive the outcome.   The same can be said for processes.  By keeping the number of swimlanes down to just the important participants, you can actually show more relevant detail.  The other participants are involved, but there is no point in showing detail of what they do; it’s out of scope.  In the dinner evening process above, it only makes sense to make a process of the over-all agenda.  There might be hundreds of participants in the ceremony, but only a few are important.

At the same time, it’s important that all of the guests are having a good time.  For example, the host detects a high percentage of people complaining about the food or getting sick.  This might be a problem that could be fixed before the party is a disaster.  But the only way to know about this condition is to mingle with the crowd and ask everyone if they are having a good time.  Too many people not having a good time (individual events) is a condition that can be brought to the attention of the organization (the process context).

Event driven business processes

The same can be said for many processes in the business world today.  There is the general high-level process and all of the subprocesses that support the main objective.  In addition, there should be some sort of feedback mechanism to govern the process flow.  Otherwise, the highest level objectives will likely fail.   For example, if I have a manufacturing business and I don’t watch the market for signs of growth or slowing, how do I know how many units to make?  And when I slow down production, do I simply cut back on my labor force, or will that negatively affect my ability to operate?   These are questions that cannot be solved in the process modeling realm; it’s an event problem.  However, these events, filtered into conditions, are something that can be modeled.  I can set up market indicator monitors that create condition events, which tell me when to speed up or slow down production.  I can also set up a means to collect information on bottlenecks in my production line, and correlate this data with employee morale data from the HR department.   Too few people on staff can cost me just as much as too many (overtime, employee retention and training, product quality issues, etc).

The old approach to process modeling was to go about business  as usual and hope that everything works out.  The new approach with the event-enabled process is to provide a way to enable the process to self-optimize.  This is not to say that everything can be automated.  But the information needs to get back to the people who make the decisions, at the right time, and filtered to what is relevant.  As organizations become larger, the events become more important.  This is because the lines of communication are long, and much information is lost in the chain of command.  We cannot model the entire process in one big picture, but we can model the events and conditions that affect related processes.

-    Rick Geneva

In a previous post I wrote about IBM buying Lombardi, and noted that I expect to see more industry consolidation.  Well, we didn’t have to wait long to find out which merger is next.  They say things  occur in threes, so I wonder which BPM company is next….

The IBM acquisition of Lombardi was interesting because IBM needed to fill the department level workflow product need.  This is where Lombardi is being positioned, according to IBM.

Progress software’s move for Savvion was much more interesting because Progress did not have a BPM system, or history of workflow systems.  Instead, Progress has a wide range of SOA systems and tools, and a strong offering in the CEP (complex event processing) and BTA (business transaction assurance) space.   With these offerings, Progress would more likely be positioned to sell products and services to the IT architecture crowd more so than the business.  Now with a full  stack of BPM, CEP, transaction monitoring, ESB, and data services, Progress is very well positioned to be an aggressive competitor in the BPM market.

I’m very interested in this Progress and Savvion merger because it shows the BPM industry is evolving into more event oriented processes instead of people centric activity.   CEP (complex event processing) refers to the idea that things happen that are not necessarily all part of a process.  For example, I can correlate streaming data from traffic, weather, positions of my delivery vehicles (from GPS), and incoming orders from my order system.  In a BPM world these events would only come together when they are relevant to a given activity.  In an event driven world, these events could potentially affect each other at any time, regardless if there is an active process task or not.  Many of these might not even be part of the BPM system.  When the filtered events are correlated to something interesting, a process action can be signaled. Examples of process action include starting a new process for corrective action.  You could also interrupt, continue, or end a process that is in-flight.

The over-all strategy of CEP + BPM means that there is less integration time for systems. Instead of routing all event activity load through the BPM system, the CEP system handles complex correlations of events, and aggregates them down to things that a BPM system might be interested in.  Also, you can get a broader perspective of multiple process instances simultaneously, especially when activities are in-flight.  For example, a delivery truck is running late.  With BPM only, it’s likely that you would not know this fact until the truck is overdue.  With CEP, I can constantly monitor all trucks via their GPS signal, and report all positions to a dashboard. Furthermore, you can correlate to traffic data in-route, and determine exactly how late the truck will be.  This allows an organization to react to exceptional conditions in real-time.   Keeping in mind, most transport companies (and other industries) do this sort of monitoring anyway, but not automatically.  Without CEP + BPM capability, you would have to perform these correlations manually, which might require a huge workforce.  The key here is that the events are reported in real-time, and the event correlations are more accurate.

Continuing coverage of the BPMN 2.0 specification, this post will focus on the new event types.   Prior to 2.0, BPMN had several problems when it came to escalating events and dealing with events in parallel.  Often I would end up using a pattern with multiple loops inside of loops to accomplish seemingly simple activities. Furthermore, it was difficult to distinguish between human centric and system centric activity for a mixed-mode diagram that includes both.

One goal of BPMN is to bring the SOA camp, the business analysts,  and the process modeling communities closer together.  A side effect of this has been that BPMN is very messaging intensive. For complex interactions, multiple pools are used, which requires lots of messaging lines to keep activity in sync between participants .  This is sometimes a problem for people who come from a flowchart/workflow backround using tools such as Visio, which essentially allows you to create a really bad BPMN diagram due to the lack of diagram validation.  Often I see messaging lines within a pool going between lanes, when what was really intended is to do a simple escalation.  Antoher common problem prior to BPMN 2.0 is showing enough detail without having to show the intricate patterns of looping and dealing with multiple events in parallel.


We are starting to see a shift from multiple pools and lanes to more of a style based on a single pool with no lanes, which means less explicit messaging notation. On the other hand, we are starting to see more capability in BPMN to document highly technical processes for the SOA community.


New Event Types

In this post I will cover the new BPMN escalation event and parallel multiple event.

Escalation event

The escalation event is new in the BPMN 2.0 specification.  The shape looks like the Star Trek symbol.  I’m not sure what you call it, but it somewhat resembles an upward facing arrowhead.  The full pallet of escalation events are available.  However, it’s important to note that both start (interrupting/non-interrupting) and both intermediate types can only be used with subprocesses. Only the throwing shapes can be used within normal sequence flow.   This implies that escalation can only be thrown from within a subprocess that has a catching shape.  The intermediates are used on the subprocess border, whereas the start types are used within the subprocess.  Note that you should review non-interrupting events in my previous post for more details on how non-interrupting events work.

BPMN 2.0 Escalation Events

Prior to the introduction of the escalation event, the only way to effectively accomplish the equivalent behavior was to throw an exception, or use a timer on a subprocess border. Both of these alternate patterns introduce potentially unwanted side effects.   If the exception event is used, there is no non-interrupting catching shape. Therefore the parent scope would always be cancelled, and only exceptional flow would be executed. But in the case of escalation, most often this is not the case.  For example, a participant is working on a problem which requires escalation to a manager. The original participant will continue the work, although the manager is now involved.  This is a collaborative escalation mode which requires a dynamic parallel flow, generated by the non-interrupting escalation event.  This would not be possible with an exception event.  Furthermore, a timer would not be appropriate in this case either because the event is not based on time. Instead, it’s based on a condition generated during the execution of a task, probably by the participant performing the task.

Escalation Event Example (non-interrupting)

The example above shows the non-interrupting start event catching the intermediate throw escalation event.  Again, note that if the start escalation event were interrupting (solid), the step “do more work” would not occur.   The start and intermediate catching events can only be used within or attached to a subprocess border.  To further clarify this behavior, study the following example:

Intermediate Escalation example

In this example the handler is on the subprocess border.  Technically this process will execute identically to the one above, with one easily overlooked difference.  The participant handling the escalation in example 1 can directly collaborate with the other active tasks, because they are both in the same scope.  Example 2 has an event handler that is external to the subprocess, which means that the handler does not have access to the same data and event scope as the other active tasks.  All communication between tasks would have to be handled in some other way.  Also note that external synchronization back into the main flow is required, because two parallel paths were created. Failure to synchronize would have the same consequences as explicitly using a parallel split with no merge. The inclusive merge is used because at design time we won’t know if the escalation path will occur or not.  Got it?  If not, bear with me for a few more posts and I’ll get back to these patterns.  For now I”m only covering the spec.

Parallel Multiple Event (inclusive behavior)

As of BPMN 1.2 the multiple event had only exclusive behavior, meaning that a single qualifying event would trigger the shape.  The inner shape of the event is a pentagon.

Multiple Events: Exclusive Behavior

Adding to this shape, you can see the new non-interrupting variety of both the start and intermediate shapes.   Refer to non-interrupting events in my previous post for details on how non-interrupting events work.


BPMN 2.0 introduces the parallel multiple event, which has inclusive behavior, meaning that all related events are required in order to trigger the shape.   There is no throwing type for this shape, because a parallel throwing multiple event would probably raise more questions than it solves.  Anyway, there are interrupting and non-interrupting varieties of the start and intermediate types.

Parallel Multiple Event shapes

Officially the specification calls this a parallel event, because it must receive all events to trigger the shape.  To help eliminate confusion I’ve also been referring to the behavior as inclusive, meaning that all events are included.  But actually, the parallel behavior is much closer to the truth of the use case.  The term ‘parallel’ is somewhat ambiguous because it might imply that all events must be received at the same time.  In reality, parallelism in BPMN does not mean that activities execute at the same time. Instead it means that multiple activities or events are enabled in parallel, and have the potential to occur at the same time.   Just because a task or event is enabled doesn’t necessarily mean that it will execute.  A parallel multiple event requires that all events in the correlation set to be triggered before the condition is satisfied.  Only then will the entire event trigger be fulfilled.

The epitome of complexity

The usefulness of this shape is debatable.  Most BPM vendors have not added support for many of the BPMN shapes because they just don’t make sense for an executable system.  In fact, about half of the BPMS vendors on the market today are using only a subset of BPMN 1.0 or 1.1.   To some, this might seem like a negative point towards the vendors.  But the reality is that most people have a hard enough time understanding the basic subset of BPMN, let alone something as complex as a “non-interrupting parallel multiple start event”.  For those of you just tuning in, this would mean that I have a generic shape acting as a filter for a bunch of specific events, and if this condition were to occur, launch an exceptional flow, in parallel, to deal with the problem.  Otherwise, keep working as normal.   Now see, that wasn’t so bad, was it?


For this shape to actually be useful in a diagram, you are doing one of two things; being purposefully vague (shorthand notation), or you are implying some sort of CEP (complex event processing) mechanism.   So, as I mentioned earlier, BPMN is getting simultaneously easier to use, and more complex at the same time.  Something as simple as a rope can be quite useful, but people somehow manage to hang themselves with it every day.

- Rick Geneva

Your thoughts?

I’m curious to see what some of you other BPM professionals think about this acquisition, and if anyone has any predictions for more consolidations.  Comments welcome.

BPMN 2.0 adds a lot of new concepts.  Many of these are long overdue to be added to the spec.  Others are a totally new concept.  In this post we are going to take a look at one of the long-overdue fixes to the BPMN specification; the intermediate events on the subprocess border.

In previous versions of BPMN, placing an event on the subprocess border meant that when the event was triggered, the exceptional flow would become active.  Also, this means that normal flow stops.  In the diagram below, subprocess A ceases when the timer event is triggered.  Instead, the “handle timeout” subprocess is active at that point.  In other words, subprocess A has been interrupted.

Intermediate Interrupting Event

There is another use case that BPMN 1.2 did not cover.  What if the timer event isn’t supposed to interrupt subprocess A?   Just to clarify, in the BPMN 2.0 specification, Interrupt means that the parent subprocess will end.  This is similar to a cancel, but cancellation is another concept and another shape entirely.  So it’s called interruption.  There is another use case for non-interrupting events that has long been a challenge prior to 2.0.

Interrupting and Non-Interrupting Events

Introduced in BPMN 2.0 is the concept of non-interrupting events.  They are illustrated with a dashed line instead of a solid line.

Intermediate Events (catching)

The difference is that when the event is triggered, the exceptional flow occurs in parallel to the main flow.  This means that you need to be careful how you use it.  Special attention is needed to how the two paths merge.  I recommend treating it just like any other parallel situation, using a gateway to merge.  But which gateway?  Parallel would be the obvious choice.  But remember that a parallel considers all paths to be active on the merge. This would cause a process deadlock if the event was never triggered.   Instead, the recommended merge shape is the inclusive gateway.

Intermediate Non-Interrupting Event

The gateway is used for flow control.  Without it, a potential exists that someone could misinterpret the diagram. I never recommend using implicit merge behavior because the risk is high that it might be misinterpreted.  This is especially true in this case because a small change such as a dashed line now means that we have a potential parallel situation. Most people new to BPMN won’t know this, and people not yet familiar with BPMN 2.0 might not spot this subtle, but critical difference.

Non-interrupting start event

This is where it gets complicated.  I had to read this part of the specification several times to figure out how a start event could be non-interrupting.  There are some small examples in the specification, but to fully understand what’s happening here we’ll have to talk about scopes of subprocess and many other concepts.  For now I’ll just introduce the idea and if you have any questions, please feel free to comment and I will reply.

First, let’s talk about scope.  When something occurs inside of a subprocess, the details are not available externally.   For example, if I were to assign an activity to you that requires several steps, I would use a subprocess.  Within that subprocess I don’t have access to the details of what you are currently doing, and I don’t have access to any data artifacts being created.   The subprocess is essentially functioning independently.  However, the subprocess has access to any information defined in the higher-level scope, such as a pool, or parent subprocess when subprocesses are nested.

Because of the limitations of subprocess scope, the event handler for a subprocess doesn’t actually have access to the data and activities contained within the subprocess.   Because of this problem, BPMN 2.0 introduces the non-interrupting start event.

Non-Interrupting Start Event

When a subprocess starts, non-interrupting start events inside the subprocess are activated.   When the subprocess completes, the evens are deactivated.  So there is a scope of when they are available to be triggered that is the same as the scope of the subprocess.

Also because of the subprocess scope, there is a change in accessibility of the events and the related exceptional flow.  Any activity or event on the exceptional flow can access anything from the parent scope.  In this case, everything is in the same subprocess scope, so both A and B can access the timeout handler, and likewise, the timeout handler can access both A and B.

This sort of behavior is significant because of the parallel behavior. In the example above, when the timer is triggered, a parallel flow is introduced.  The parallel flow is outside the scope of the original activity, which might cause synchronization issues. So you might to use additional events such as signals to keep things happening in the correct order.

Because the non-interrupting flow is in the same subprocess, a merging gateway is not needed. A subprocess has an implicit merge capability.  But you still have to pay attention to details.  If the timeout handler is not completed until after subprocess B, the entire subprocess will still be held back until timeout handler is completed.  This is the nearly identical behavior to the interrupting pattern shown above with the merging gateway.  The main difference is in the scope and visibility of data.

I asked the question why they didn’t just reuse the intermediate instead of the start.  I think it would have been easier to learn. It seems that many folks at OMG are very strict about using start and end events inside every subprocess.  However, the spec doesn’t explicitly say that intermediates are disallowed.  I suppose that using an intermediate as a start of a flow is just as confusing.   Prior to BPMN 2.0 I used to draw the entire pattern in yet another parent subprocess, and create any data artifacts in the higher-level parent scope so that both normal and exceptional flow would share a common scope.    So I can see where this new feature of BPMN 2.0 will be useful.  However, I recommend using text annotations so that people who read your diagrams are clear on the exact behavior you are trying to achieve.

BPMN getting complicated?

I have already received feedback based on my last few posts that BPMN is getting way too complicated.  In some ways I agree, but we also have to consider every use case and have a clear way of illustrating it.    Up until quite recently I was very hard-core on teaching every BPMN shape.  I’m now taking a different approach to process modeling.  Sometimes you need all of the shapes, and sometimes you don’t.  It also very much depends on who the audience is. For the engineering crowd, use every feature of BPMN to the maximum extent.  For the strictly business people, I suggest looking at the basic subset of BPMN and letting others worry about the complexity.  This is yet more evidence that we need a multi-tier process design.  You cannot shove everything into one process model and expect everyone to read and understand it.

I’m not making any promises of timeline yet, but I have a new book in the works that will help clarify the spec and make recommendations on which shapes to use in which situations.

Comments and questions welcome.

- Rick Geneva

This post is a continuation of the Highlights from BPMN 2.0 series.

At Last!  The long awaited changes to the numerous problems with the event based gateway.   First off, there was only one type of event based gateway in BPMN 1.0 – 1.2, and it is exclusive behavior.  Exclusive event behavior means that only one event can trigger the gateway.  Also, there was only one shape that served a dual role of start and intermediate event, yet the shape did not have any variations as the event shapes do (see Demystifying the Event Based Gateway from my previous post).

First, let’s take another look at the original Event Based Gateway from BPMN 1.0 – 1.2

Event Based Exclusive Gateway

Event Based Gateway (Exclusive, Intermediate)

The inner pentagon shape signifies multiple events.  The double circle signifies intermediate usage. Lastly, the outer diamond shape signifies a gateway.  When you combine these attributes you get a gateway that handles multiple event types.  Also note that the inner pentagon shape signifies that only one of the potentially numerous events are needed to trigger the gateway.   In many use cases of process modeling, this is less than adequate for the job.  In many cases I’ve had to create some very elaborate patterns to work around the shortcomings for this shape.  The previous BPMN 1.2 specification allowed for this shape to be used as a start or intermediate event.  With all this ambiguity you might now understand why I wrote a post called “Demystifying” the Event Based Gateway.  Still, there were many use cases that were just too complicated to understand.  So I’m quite pleased to see that BPMN 2.0 finally fixes these problems.

Event Based Start Gateway

Event Based Start (exclusive)

Adding only a slight variation of the original shape, the Event Based Exclusive Start Gateway (that’s a mouthful of words) uses the start event (single circle) instead of the intermediate (double circle).   It’s used as the start event, with intermediate events to the right.  Hopefully by the time the spec is released they will allow for start events to be connected to the right of this shape.   But either way it works for me.  This saves me at least 10 minutes of explanation every time this topic comes up in one of my training classes.

Event Based Inclusive

Event Based (Inclusive, Start)

Event Based (Inclusive, intermediate)

This is where the BPMN 2.0 spec gets interesting.  There has long been a use case where you need to receive multiple events to trigger a process to start or to continue. Previously the only option was to put the event based gateway in a loop until all events have been received.  But then this caused another problem where the same event could potentially be received more than once, which is often undesirable.  In BPMN 2.0 you the new inclusive multiple event shape is introduced (discussed in more detail in a later post).  The shape is an empty plus (+) shape (white filled).  This type of event signifies that all associated events must be received before the event is triggered.  So when you put this event type inside the diamond, you then have a gateway that is only triggered when all events are received.  Note that there are both start and intermediate variations of this shape.

Next post: Event shapes in BPMN 2.0

Comments and questions much appreciated and encouraged.

- Rick Geneva

Data Artifacts

Data Artifact

The data artifact shape was introduced in BPMN 1.0 and it is used to illustrate that some type of data is associated with shapes on the diagram. The problem with this shape is that it’s too generic to be widely used.  Also, it relies on the fact that everyone can understand the abstract concept of what a data artifact actually is.  Most people I talk to see this shape as a document, but don’t initially realize that it could in fact be representing a database record.  And then there was the problem of showing if it’s just one item or many.  In the case where it is actually many items, my diagram would be cluttered by a bunch of these.

Multiplicity

Data Artifact Collection

BPMN 2.0 introduces the Data Artifact Collection object.  In general, the three bars ||| indicate multiplicity.  They are used on several shapes.  In my previous post I showed the new activity shapes with the three bars as being multiple instance.  The meaning is similar with the new data artifact collection shape.  The additional annotation on the shape indicates that there are multiple items in the collection of data artifacts.  An example could be a pile of documents.  Or it could mean that multiple database records are involved.  In the IT architecture world, when dealing with data, this could symbolize an array of data.

Input and Output

Data Artifact Input

Data Artifact Output

The arrow annotation on the data artifact shape indicates that the data is either inbound or outbound, depending on the color of the arrow.  White indicates that the data is being received.  Black indicates that the data is being sent.  Sending and receiving is always relative to the participant pool where the shape is located.  For example, sending on one pool usually means that data is receiving in the opposite pool.  But we are also seeing a departure from the notion that swimlanes are required in all diagrams.  Many diagrams are abstracted, and show the perspective of only one participant.  The sending and receiving data artifact can help to clarify diagrams drawn in this style.

BPMN 2.0 is becoming more friendly to the technical crowd.  Early in 2009 I did a presentation at AJUG (Atlanta Java Users Group).  This group is primarily for Java software programmers and enterprise data architects.  They were very interested in SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) but there was some scepticism in the crowd as to whether or not BPMN would affect the world of programming. I showed a few diagrams that actually generate executable software code, but the story was not yet convincing to some.

My opinion on this topic is that BPMN will not replace traditional programming technique, because we still have a need for doing things “the old way”.  But reinventing the wheel in programming every day is very inefficient.   Already we have good IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) that generate code based on patterns. The next logical step in evolution of the IDE is to represent something technical via a graphical icon.  UML made an attempt at doing this, but UML was not very friendly to the business community.   So now BPMN is adding some of the same concepts as in programming, but abstracted in a way that both business and IT can understand it.

The main idea behind BPM is that business and IT architecture collaborates in a common environment, using a common modeling notation, with the goal of automating and improving processes.  This often means that a business analyst will define the need for a technology to handle data.  Data systems understand input and output.  So now we have shapes that can help to create requirements for IT without having to go into diagrams of explicit messaging.   For example, we could say that a task has an output of a customer record.  Drawing the UML class diagram of a customer record is pointless at this level of abstraction because we are focusing on process flow, not data definition.  Later, IT architects can design the customer object to whatever schema is required.  The point is that we know where in the process flow that the customer object is being used.  This not only helps for gathering requirements today, but also later on when we want to change processes.

Note that both the input and outputs can have the multiplicity (three bars ||| ) notation, indicating that a collection of data is used for the input or output.

Data Source Artifact

Data Source Artifact Shape

The data artifact shape is abstract, meaning that it could represent many types of data, or even a part in a manufacturing assembly line process.  Some modeling tools have extensions with extra icon annotations that are non-standard.  I don’t suspect BPMN is going to add shapes for everything, because it would be even more difficult to get everyone to agree (this would be a spec killer).   However, there has long been a need for clarifications on diagrams concerning data that is detached (in transit) or if it’s associated with a permanent data storage location.

The Data Source Artifact shape should be familiar to most people, because it’s similar to the database shape from flowcharts.  However, there is a distinct difference in BPMN from the flowchart shape.  A data source is not only a database, but it could also represent an abstract data source, such as a hard drive where documents are stored.  In the modern information age we have many types of data stores.  Often, data stores are virtualized, existing somewhere in the could on the Internet.  But for all practical purposes the general concept is similar a database.  Just be aware that this shape doesn’t necessarily mean “database”.

The new specification is over 500 pages long, which is much more than most of us have time to digest.  Furthermore, the specification is heavily laden with XML and references to mapping BPMN to the BPEL runtime. This is quite useful for standardizing BPM systems but might be more technical than the average process modeler wants to hear about.  Over the next few posts on this blog I will be highlighting some of the most important changes, and what it means to you as a process modeler.

In this post I will describe the new BPMN 2.0 task and activity types.

Activity Category

Often in my BPMN class I have a student who asks “how can I tell if the activity is a person or a system task?”.  Prior to BPMN 2.0 the only way to tell was to look at in the lanes in the pool, if you are using this style. Otherwise you would have to use a text annotation to clarify the intent of the digram.  BPMN 2.0 adds new icon annotations to the tasks. These icons are optional, but I encourage you to use them because it brings a lot of clarity to a diagram.

BPMN 2.0 Task Shapes

For example, there is now a manual task and a human task.  The difference is that the human task is meant for a BPM system or an application such as CRM where a task can be assigned to a person.  A manual task could mean many things, all of which are outside the scope of a typical system interaction diagram.  For example, a postal worker who sorts letters, a factory worker who assembles product, or a bicycle courier who delivers a package.  Manual tasks are sometimes just as important to an organization as tasks in a BPM system.  Therefore you should model these activities, and show a clear differentiation between the two types of human activity.

Messaging

The message task is something new, and solves a problem from the previous BPMN 1.2 specification.   Often, communications are not necessarily a one-way message.    The spec allows for either a task for a message event to send and/or receive messages. Students in my classes often ask me when should a task be used, and when should it be an event.  This usually results in a half hour lesson on the semantics and style of using task vs. event.  Thankfully, the 2.0 spec helps solve this problem.  The main intent here is to use a task for blocking communication, also known as synchronous.  In Synchronous communication, the initiator must wait for a reply before continuing with the next activity in a process.  This means that the initiator has a very active role in the communication, and a task should be used instead of an event.   In BPMN 1.2 I used the intermediate message event with a two-way message.  This was somewhat against the spec, but in order to illustrate the nature of the process, it was necessary.  So now we have a shape to solve this problem.

System Activity

System tasks were always a bit of a mystery in BPMN.  Often you would see a task that simply stated it was performed by the system, or an application.  The problem is that there was no way to tell what the system is actually doing.  The usage of rules, services, and scripts is very common in a BPM system.  But without a shape to differentiate which category of activity, the reader of the BPMN diagram was left to guess.  Again, the only way around this problem was to use a text annotation.  BPMN 2.0 adds three new icon annotations to activities, which helps cut down on text, and speeds the creation and interpretation of diagrams.

The service activity is a much welcome addition because now the business analyst who creates a process diagram can easily show where services are being consumed.  IT architects can now more easily justify the usage of BPMN instead of UML for process oriented projects.  This is a tiny change, but I think it will make a giant leap forward in terms of business and IT collaboration.

Scrips or Services

Not every system task in a BPM system is a service.  In an SOA system (service oriented architecture) this might be the case, but again, not always true.  Many tasks are simple scripts, which could be JavaScript, XPath, or other languages.  Often these scripts are proprietary to the BPM system that implements them.  But to communicate in a vendor neutral way, we must use shapes that are generic.  Often a higher level diagram will specify “a system task” but gives no reference on how it should be implemented.  So now with BPMN 2.0 you have a clear differentiation of service task verses script task.

Business Rules

Rules and process work together closely in a BPM system.  Prior to BPMN 2.0 there was no clear way to illustrate a rule activity.  The condition event didn’t quite work, because a rule is not actually an event.  Rules more closely resemble services, but a rule is a very specific type of service, often maintained by business people instead of IT.  Most BPM systems have their own BRE (business rules engine) or decision table system.  The rule shape represents the execution of a business rule.  This is quite useful in process modeling when you are working in a higher level multi-tier diagram structure and you are not yet ready to show the full details of a business rule.

Multi-Instance Activities

In a previous post Ins and Outs of Process Loops I pointed out a problem in the BPMN 1.2 specification related to multi-instance process loops.  The annotations state that the activity occurs multiple times.  However the spec says that the execution could be either in parallel, or in series.  But there was no way to tell which was which unless you looked at the “properties” which is unique to the BPMN system or the modeling tool.

BPMN 2.0 Multi-Instance Activity

My advice at the time was to use a text annotation to clarify the diagram.  This has now been fixed in BPMN 2.0.  The shape on the left is the parallel execution, which means all instances will execute simultaneously.  The subprocess on the right is the serial execution, meaning that all instances will occur one following the other.    Both of these shapes describe a “for-each” behavior because there is a set number of iterations.  In contrast, “do-while” and “do-until” loop types do not have a defined limit before the activity starts.   But a for-each normally would have a set number of iterations (for x = 1 to 5…).

Note that the looping subprocess and task shapes are still valid (no changes).

Next Post:  Artifact Shapes in BPMN 2.0

- Rick Geneva

Recently I spent some time in Singapore teaching an advanced process modeling class.   I was pleasantly surprised at how well Singapore is adopting process oriented strategies, and how well the students learned from this event.  But I also realized something about BPM and process modeling.  There is a general lack of knowledge world-wide of how to actually execute on process management.  Some countries are doing better than others, but in the ten years that BPM has been mainstream, we still haven’t gained much ground in terms of getting the word out.


OMG has done a fabulous job at giving the world a specification for a modeling notation that far exceeds the potential of flowcharts.  The problem is, we are still at a point where we have a specification, but no practical knowledge on how to apply it to a real-world business process.   There are still only a handful of us in the BPM space that understand the BPMN specification fully.   If this BPM industry is to take off, there has to be more visibility on the benefits of getting away from the old flowchart approach.   Instead of trying to sell a BPM system (that’s the easy sell to make a some quick money) we should be teaching BPM practice.  You cannot buy BPM.  You have to practice it every day.


I started doing these advanced process modeling events because I believe it’s time that process modeling matures.  I believe we are finally at a point where the industry is starting to accept that BPMN is not just another fancy way of doing flowcharts.  There is something very special about BPMN, and sadly, we as BPM professionals, have not done a very good job getting the message out.  Most business analysts I talk to believe that a Flowcharts, are good enough, process are completely linear, and it’s okay to create a spaghetti diagram (lines going every which way).


Teaching the better way….

We have to start educating people that flowcharts are not good enough.   A flowchart still has its place, but in today’s high-paced business world where technology is embedded into our daily lives, we need something that can handle the complexity.  The real challenge is that BPMN isn’t enough either.  BPM (the process management practice) made many promises and in some cases delivered, but only to those who sought to manage processes.  Those who bought a fancy, expensive system, hoping it would solve their problems often ended up with more of a mess than they started with.  The BPM system is only designed to automate processes that you define, not to fix your organization.  In other words, you have to learn how to model processes if you want to get anywhere with an automation system (or any application used in processes, for that matter).


There is a relationship between process management and the technology we employ to make our organizations more efficient.  This is the real message that needs to be taught to the business community, otherwise I fear we will get nowhere, and the concepts of BPM will die.    I’m already seeing signs of this happening.  There’s talk about complex events and the data model being king, while the process model is increasingly neglected.  After all, the BPM system has not delivered on all of its promises, so let’s go get some other technology to “fix our problem”, right?  (if you haven’t realized it yet, technology makes things more complex, not simpler).  But from my perspective, I can still model every one of these problems in BPMN, while showing more cross-organizational details than any other methodology.   So before embracing the next technology that promises to fix everything, consider this: process modeling has been around since the late 1700’s and it’s not going anywhere.  We have even more of a need today than ever, for good process models.


What’s next?

So from this point onward, I ‘m on a mission.  I’m already quite far along with PMF (Process Modeling Framework) which is a governance methodology for the entire BPM practice.  But I decided that this is not enough.   I’m going to tackle the bigger problem, which is how to make process modeling consumable for the average business person (and not just the analysts).


Look for a new book in late Q1 of  2010. I started this project over two years ago, and just a few months ago I realized that BPMN is not enough, and neither is PMF. So I’ve started over, with an entirely new vision on process modeling that I have yet to see anywhere else in the world. Progress is going well. If you would like a sneak peek at the content, come to one of my advanced process modeling training events. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

- Rick Geneva