In the IT world, trends come and go.  The next “must have” or “must do” today is a dust collector tomorrow.   Recently I had a conversation with a colleague about BPM, and whether or not it will continue to be a growing trend, or are its days numbered?   He said to me “are you still doing that process stuff?  BPM is old news.”  My reply to this was simple.  While trends of automating processes come and go, process management has been around since before the computer.  The computer enables people to be more efficient in many ways.  But the software you use today is constantly being replaced by latest, greatest trend.   BPM is not software.  It’s not something you buy.  It’s something you do. There are many systems on the market based on older technologies that make them go out of favor as new systems emerge.  But to say that BPM is ancient history would be like saying that business its self is ancient history as well.

Read more »

I will be doing an advanced process modeling training in Singapore on October 14th and 15th, 2009.  This is a public class through my employer, Intalio.  However, the content of this class is not specific to Intalio.  In fact, it’s applicable to any form of process modeling even if you have no intention of creating executable process models.   The course will contain in-depth coverage of my upcoming book content including process patterns and the Process Modeling Framework (PMF).

I’m using this class as a test run of the book content.   Also there will be some hands-on exercises and real-world use cases to analyze.  So if you happen to in the area during October, I’d love to have you in my class.

Read more »

Recently I have been doing a series of presentations on SOA and BPM with a combined governance strategy and framework.  It seems that BPM and SOA are a hot topic these days, but there doesn’t seem to be much knowledge on how to effectively combine both practices into a unified effort where both IT and business collaborate towards the same goals.   This is the problem that BPM tried to solve back in 2002 but was not widely adopted because of the lack of IT backing of the tools.   Now that SOA is becoming common practice it’s time for a second look at what BPM can really do for an organization.

Read more »

There are many ways to accomplish loops in the BPMN specification.   Flowcharts only offer one way to cause a loop back, but BPMN offers 4 explicit ways, and potentially dozens of ways to create a loop implicitly.  Often my students ask the question “so, aren’t they all the same thing?”   Technically, yes, and no.   Sorry to say it, but there is no right answer according to the specification.  This is up to you to figure out.   The specification does however offer many options that can be used to express certain situations.  But to a newcomer to BPMN,  the challenge is always which one should you use, when, and why.

Read more »

Often I see process models that represent the same basic business concept but are modeled with completely different styles.   Technically the BPMN lane and pool shapes are both a swimlane.  But which one do I use, when, and more importantly – why?

Read more »

Of the many BPMN shapes, I seem to get the most questions about the BPMN signal event.    There seems to be 3 use cases that are the most common.   But first let’s take a look at what the OMG BPMN 1.2 specification says about signal event:

Read more »

Often I hear from people that are looking to implement a new “workflow application” in their organization. This always gives me a reminder that we (the IT community) have not yet broken through that boundary yet to where everyone understands what is a process and what is an application. Read more »

The new release of the Intalio 5.2 process modeler includes the BPMN 1.1 notation. This modeling tool is a free download, and runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Read more »

SOA is an acronym for Service Oriented Architecture. SOA is an approach to building software in a way that allows components to be reused across a large organization. So what does this have to do with process modeling?  Process modeling involves analyzing all the various participants of a process such as people, systems, and other processes. Often a process modeler will overlook the fact that systems are involved in a process.

Read more »

I am proud to announce the release of The Microguide to Process Modeling in BPMN on Amazon.com on July 16, 2008. Tom Debevoise and I have been working on this project since September, 2007. You might wonder why this book is so short for such a complex topic. We wanted to make the BPMN language accessible to everyone.

Read more »