Sandy, of Column 2 fame, is blogging the Process 2006 convention “live” as it goes. Subscribe to her blog to stay on top of things. For now, here are the articles she’s posted from day 1.
BPMN Deadlock
One danger of using a precise language like BPMN to describe business processes is that you can precisely get yourself into trouble. Deadlock (in BPMN) is a condition used to describe a process that can’t be completed. By designing (or describing) the wrong business process, you can create a process that never finishes.
Before And After – A Rule For Improving Processes
Nils proposes his rule of three boxes as a consideration when developing software or software features to improve business processes. In short, make sure that you can actually execute the new process. It isn’t enough to create a good “replacement process” – you have to be able to transition to the new process and then back out of it. The new process is plugged into a business ecosystem, and it must coexist with the existing processes.
BPMN Compensation Event Correction
One of our readers (thank you!) pointed out that another blogger was critiqueing one of our earlier business process modeling notation (BPMN) diagrams. Turns out we made a couple mistakes. Here’s a more detailed look at the compensation end event.
BPMN Diagrams – Sequence Flow
BPMN Diagrams don’t use the term control flow to describe processes. They use the terms sequence flow and message flow. Within sequence flow, there are four classifications of flow.
BPMN Diagrams – Intermediate Multiple Events
We can simplify BPMN Diagrams with intermediate multiple events. These events are combinations of different intermediate events, much like complex gateways combine different gateways.
BPMN Diagrams – Hit the Links With Intermediate Events
Drawing business process diagrams can be tricky. Just getting the layout on the page to look good can be tricky. Intermediate link events can be used to clean up diagrams. They can also be used to jump from a specified point in one process to a specific point in another process.
BPMN Diagrams – Intermediate Rule Events
Business process modeling is rarely applied to simplistic processes. Real world business processes often embody complex decision making. Complex decisions imply choices of action. Rule intermediate events, in BPMN, are designed to express these hard ideas with easy to read diagrams.
BPMN Diagrams – Make It Right With Intermediate Compensation Events
Sometimes we can’t undo our actions. Water under the bridge. But we can make it right by doing something else to compensate. BPMN allows us to use intermediate events to compensate for mistakes in the past. A classic example is cancellation of a purchase. Our example is a little more fun.