Comments on: Manchurian Candidate in the BPMN Battle? http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/manchurian-candidate-in-the-bpmn-battle/ Bruce Silver's blog on business process management Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:22:38 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: bruce http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/manchurian-candidate-in-the-bpmn-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-6806 bruce Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:57:10 +0000 http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/?p=354#comment-6806 Great comment, Shane. I agree 100%. Great comment, Shane. I agree 100%.

]]> By: shanepearson http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/manchurian-candidate-in-the-bpmn-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-6805 shanepearson Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:59:29 +0000 http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/?p=354#comment-6805 Standards always move in fits and starts and this is especially the case when looking at complimentary standards that are evolving on their own time lines such as BPDM and BPMN. If the proposal now is that BPDM would go forward in a way that provides similar notation semantics to what exists in BPMN today and that then BPMN should evolve to work well with the proposed BPDM meta-model then that should be workable. This is simialr to how many vendors use XPDL, but would appear to offer more flexibility. That would be much better proposal then what was generally perceived last year to be a "just rename BPDM to BPMN" and get rid of the old stuff. I'm still curious to see how the pure-play and stack players all get together to make this work. Standards is a bit of a vendor game trying to protect or create perceived advantages in the market and this is just one of many examples. For customers, the modeling and meta-model standards can provide a lot of value to the business in terms of skills portability which generally is just as important or more important then actual code portability. Let's just hope that whatever happens all the people that have found real value in leveraging BPMN as the basis for their BPM modeling have a good path forward. Standards always move in fits and starts and this is especially the case when looking at complimentary standards that are evolving on their own time lines such as BPDM and BPMN.

If the proposal now is that BPDM would go forward in a way that provides similar notation semantics to what exists in BPMN today and that then BPMN should evolve to work well with the proposed BPDM meta-model then that should be workable. This is simialr to how many vendors use XPDL, but would appear to offer more flexibility. That would be much better proposal then what was generally perceived last year to be a “just rename BPDM to BPMN” and get rid of the old stuff.

I’m still curious to see how the pure-play and stack players all get together to make this work. Standards is a bit of a vendor game trying to protect or create perceived advantages in the market and this is just one of many examples. For customers, the modeling and meta-model standards can provide a lot of value to the business in terms of skills portability which generally is just as important or more important then actual code portability. Let’s just hope that whatever happens all the people that have found real value in leveraging BPMN as the basis for their BPM modeling have a good path forward.

]]> By: Phil Gilbert http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/manchurian-candidate-in-the-bpmn-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-6782 Phil Gilbert Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:29:20 +0000 http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/?p=354#comment-6782 Bruce, Definitely agree that the notation semantics must be [at least] as accessible as they are in today's BPMN spec. I am proposing that as much as possible we use the existing BPMN semantics, only changing them when they offer ambiguity when merged with the BPDM concepts. Phil Bruce,

Definitely agree that the notation semantics must be [at least] as accessible as they are in today’s BPMN spec. I am proposing that as much as possible we use the existing BPMN semantics, only changing them when they offer ambiguity when merged with the BPDM concepts.

Phil

]]> By: bruce http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/manchurian-candidate-in-the-bpmn-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-6781 bruce Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:47:37 +0000 http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/?p=354#comment-6781 Phil, I agree with most of what you say here. It is a much better position than what was presented at Think Tank 2007, where I think "renaming" would be a fair characterization... to take advantage of, as you correctly point out in your blog, BPMN's superior "branding" in the marketplace. I hope that in the next round of proposals, the BPDM submission includes a major overhaul of the notation section to clarify the semantics of all the diagram elements and patterns in BPMN. I re-read that section today and I still can't make heads or tails of much of it. As long as it takes a PhD in computer science to understand the notation semantics, BDPM will continue to suffer from the charge of "complexity." And rightly so. Phil,
I agree with most of what you say here. It is a much better position than what was presented at Think Tank 2007, where I think “renaming” would be a fair characterization… to take advantage of, as you correctly point out in your blog, BPMN’s superior “branding” in the marketplace.
I hope that in the next round of proposals, the BPDM submission includes a major overhaul of the notation section to clarify the semantics of all the diagram elements and patterns in BPMN. I re-read that section today and I still can’t make heads or tails of much of it. As long as it takes a PhD in computer science to understand the notation semantics, BDPM will continue to suffer from the charge of “complexity.” And rightly so.

]]> By: Phil Gilbert | Perspectives in Process http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/manchurian-candidate-in-the-bpmn-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-6780 Phil Gilbert | Perspectives in Process Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:40:50 +0000 http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/?p=354#comment-6780 <strong>Waiting Until Yesterday Is Here...</strong> Why are we debating "how best to stand still" instead of "how can we get all this brainpower from IBM, SAP, Oracle, Lombardi, Mega, etc." together to extend BPMN to cover all the great business power in BPDM? ...If IBM/SAP/Oracle are really serio... Waiting Until Yesterday Is Here…

Why are we debating “how best to stand still” instead of “how can we get all this brainpower from IBM, SAP, Oracle, Lombardi, Mega, etc.” together to extend BPMN to cover all the great business power in BPDM?

…If IBM/SAP/Oracle are really serio…

]]> By: Phil Gilbert http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/2008/07/14/manchurian-candidate-in-the-bpmn-battle/comment-page-1/#comment-6779 Phil Gilbert Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:25:33 +0000 http://www.brsilver.com/wordpress/?p=354#comment-6779 I think maybe you're confused about what "merging" BPDM and BPMN means. It doesn't mean "renaming" the BPDM spec. The BPMN 2.0 spec will define the notation and the metamodel - adopting today's notation, plus extending it to include the new elements contemplated in BPDM. The problem with BPDM today is that it is simply a language, it needs to be given what I call the "voice of notation" in order for it to be more broadly understood and consumed. The problem with BPMN is it has no language, it is simply the graphical picture. It needs to be given an explicit body of language in order to be a useful aspect of enabling the model-driven business. Joining these two into a single spec advances the state of the art. In the non-IBM/SAP/Oracle proposal, the metamodel would look a lot like the BPDM metamodel (semantics that are different between the two specs today would have to be normalized, of course... and I think generally the BPMN semantics would be retained), but of course the focus of the spec would still be the notation - which would be today's BPMN plus more, especially in the choreography area, an area that needs significant enhancement. Broad notation-based adoption of the concepts included in BPDM that aren't present in today's BPMN would accelerate the pace at which advanced business modeling could occur. There is no question that the powerful concepts in BPDM - when they are given the voice of notation - will change the way in which business can be modeled, moving us faster and farther down the road of business process management. I think maybe you’re confused about what “merging” BPDM and BPMN means. It doesn’t mean “renaming” the BPDM spec. The BPMN 2.0 spec will define the notation and the metamodel – adopting today’s notation, plus extending it to include the new elements contemplated in BPDM. The problem with BPDM today is that it is simply a language, it needs to be given what I call the “voice of notation” in order for it to be more broadly understood and consumed. The problem with BPMN is it has no language, it is simply the graphical picture. It needs to be given an explicit body of language in order to be a useful aspect of enabling the model-driven business. Joining these two into a single spec advances the state of the art.

In the non-IBM/SAP/Oracle proposal, the metamodel would look a lot like the BPDM metamodel (semantics that are different between the two specs today would have to be normalized, of course… and I think generally the BPMN semantics would be retained), but of course the focus of the spec would still be the notation – which would be today’s BPMN plus more, especially in the choreography area, an area that needs significant enhancement. Broad notation-based adoption of the concepts included in BPDM that aren’t present in today’s BPMN would accelerate the pace at which advanced business modeling could occur. There is no question that the powerful concepts in BPDM – when they are given the voice of notation – will change the way in which business can be modeled, moving us faster and farther down the road of business process management.

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