Business Process Modeling in Ten Minutes

This factsheet, ot tutorial if you like, provides a quick intro to key business process modeling concepts including:

  • business processes modeling (BPM);
  • business process model and notation (BPMN) diagrams;
  • business analysis methodology;
  • and business modeling software

Business process modeling is useful to understanding how your organization works, describe how you would like it to work and analyse the gap between the present and the desired situation. Armed with this factsheet, in only ten minutes you will be able to:

  • read and understand business process diagrams;
  • analyze and map simple business processes using BPMN

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Sample

Below is a text sample from the factsheet:

Business Process Modeling (BPM) is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current process may be analyzed and improved.


What is BPM?

Business Process Modeling (BPM) is the activity of representing processes of an enterprise, so that the current process may be analyzed and improved.

BPM is typically performed by business analysts and managers who are seeking to improve process efficiency and quality.

…and what is BPMN?

Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a graphical representation for specifying business processes in a business process model.

BPMN Reference

The following is a quick reference to the most important elements in BPMN.

With a rough knowledge of these you will be able to start analyzing, modeling and optimizing your own business processes.

Activities

Activities are elements used to symbolize work which is performed within a business process.

Activities can be simple single tasks – or they may be compound tasks – so called sub-processes.

Ordering a pizza, sample BPMN diagram

Ordering a pizza, sample BPMN diagram


Further BPM reading

This factsheet is a good starting point for learning business process modeling. If you are hungry for more, please find a few good resources below.

Recommended BPM software

There is a lot of software which allows you to create BPMN diagrams, both commercial and open source (free). Some are simple diagramming tools; others will generate comprehensive written documentation. Two of my favorites are listed here:

The Bizagi Process Modeler is a freeware application which supports process diagramming including generation of documentation. The software can be downloaded from http://www.bizagi.com where you will also find a wide range of BPM resources and tutorials.

The yEd Graph Editor is another good, free BPMN diagramming tool. While yEd does not have the sophisticated process documentation functions offered by Bizagi, it has an automatic layout function which can optimize the drawing of even the most complex business processes in an instant. yEd makes it very easy to make good-looking diagrams. You can download the yEd Graph Editor from http://www.yworks.com/

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