Comments on: Step Up to Full BPMN

By: BPMS Watch » What to Look for in a BPMN Tool

BPMS Watch » What to Look for in a BPMN Tool — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 20:14:01 +0000

[...] The two big gotchas for Beth were also non-starters for me as well: lack of support for intermediate events, and the inability to explode collapsed subprocesses into their full detail in a separate (but linked) diagram. I’ve written at length about the first problem (Step Up to Full BPMN), a not-uncommon omission in BPMN tools from BPMS vendors whose process engine can’t handle intermediate events and transaction compensation. [...]

By: Heinz

Heinz — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 10:38:00 +0000

I am an ‘aficionado’ of your BPM articles: first they are good reading, second I usually fully agree with your statements. Not totally with your “Step Up To “Full” BPMN”.
Well, you read in the introduction to the BPMN standard “The intent is to create a standard visual language that all process modelers will recognize and understand…”
So far so good – with one reservation: after a very promising start the whole standard seems to get out of hand. The proposed standard now has more than 300 pages, which is hardly compatible with the primary goal stated above. I do not have to repeat Einstein’s famous quote about simplicity, but in the IT world the opposite is done: “make everything as complicated as possible…”
It is further claimed that “BPMN creates a standardized bridge for the gap between business process design and process implementation” – to a certain point; but the gap (or divide) between model and final implementation remains.
Business people like visualizing business processes – but they are certainly lost when confronted with the mapping into a so-called execution language, which is in essence a programming language. They can only hope that what they originally agreed upon (the nice looking BPMN diagram), will be properly realized by the implementation. Experience shows: the real problems usually start right here.
Hence in our (considerable) experience with implementing BPM using our tool (Xpert.ivy, that leads from BPMN directly to implementation by click of a button), it is important to go soon to a model that can be executed, i.e. where the people concerned will readily see and understand what will happen in real life.
Hence, a judiciously chosen subset of BPMN remains important to fulfill the major claim (see above).
Heinz, Switzerland

By: bruce

bruce — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:12:37 +0000

Marlon,
You are absolutely on target here! The high-end BPA tool vendors who sell reference models developed their process metamodel before BPML, BPEL, and SOA, so they have no concept of things like intermediate events, message flows, compensation which are part of BPMN. So even though those things would greatly enrich the business content — witness my correspondent’s ITIL example — the BPA vendors can’t do it. The BPMN tool vendors who do support these things, I agree, would probably create more value by focusing on business content instead of the details of BPEL generation.

By: marlon_dumas

marlon_dumas — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 01:58:31 +0000

Hi Bruce,
Another thing that people are looking in a BPMN tool is “content”. ARIS, CaseWise and Provision for example have been successful partly because they come with a number of “reference models” such as ITIL and SCOR (in addition to the SAP reference models in the case of ARIS which have also contributed to its success). I see a lot of focus on tool vendors focusing heavily on features such as generating BPEL skeletons from BPMN models (which we have already debated extensively in other blog entries), but at the end of the day, a large number of process models that analysts will produce are not even going to make it into software development. A lot of them are instead used purely for generating and understanding process improvement ideas, There is a lack of emphasis on actual business content, and that’s a real pity.

By: kewbss

kewbss — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 23:48:42 +0000

Bruce,

The BPMN modeling tool you describe is absolutely *cricitical* to getting the BPM message across I reckon.

I’ve spent the past few weeks talking to people – mostly IT people but also business analysts/consultants – about BPM and most of them just don’t ‘get it’. The IT people view the whole thing as just another software development tool while the analysts run the other way at the prospect of another BPA tool / notation standard.

An integrated modeling tool that can be used by skilled business process owners, – not just specialist analysts – and that generates an executable – or at least implementable – process artefact is the key to BPMS success. Until people see such a tool in action, they will struggle to understand what all the BPM hype is about.

Regards,
Warwick Moyse
Adelaide, South Australia

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 21:58:11 +0000

Bruce,
EClarus also have a community edition of our BPMN-compliant modeling tool that is free. If you are looking for a product for training purpose, we are happy to offer you an advanced version of our products free for your training.

We have two unique modeling features that may be of interest to you and Business process modeling users; user-defined properties similar to UML profile that let customers extend metadata for any BPMN objects. Second, we also have a feature called “Track changes”. The feature is very similar to track change in WORD. It allows designer to capture AS-IS and TO-BE process in a single model.

Regards,
Henry
eClarus Software