Chapter 2. Process Modeling (examenvraag)
Business Process Model and Notation – BPMN
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 35
,BPMN 2.0: An introductory Course in three levels
Level 1: Introduction
Préface (video)
Datamodes = sound, vision, … ChatGPT 4.0 can handle different datamodes.
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 36
,Running example
Suppose you want to develop an information system that allows a construction material
supplier to support and manage its full sales, manufacturing and financial process.
You are told that the order handling process typically goes as follows:
How do we describe or model this order handling process?
What should be included in the model, and what should be ignored?
- Normal language is not effective
- to extract what is relevant, essential and important in a more effective and intuitive way
- we care about the process, so use process modeller.
- learn to make abstraction from what is not important and focus on what is important
- To describe this we use BPMN
BPMN
This is a graphical language or notation to model or represent processes
that uses a limited number of graphical elements.
The process representation is formal, exhaustive and unambiguous.
o Strict meanings and uses of elements
o Strict rules to combine elements
Green : Start event
Orange : Intermediate event
Red : End event
So if we look back at our example we get:
3 lanes : Sales, Finance, Warehouse
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 37
, Note : Model does not leave room for interpretation?
Yes, every information you abstract gives room to interpretation.
This is normal, because it leave us the room to only focus on what is relevant.
Sometimes, certain activities are very complex so we represent them as a subprocess:
Fulfill order subprocess :
The model does leave room for interpretation dependent on how much you made abstraction
from. Each model abstracts away irrelevant things in the perspective of the modeller and leaves
space for interpretation. This gives the opportunity to focus on what’s relevant.
Remark:
o Activities by themselves can be very complex ; e.g. ‘check credit’
o This complexity might not be represented (typically isn’t) by a BPMN process model,
depending on the perspective,
the level of detail
adopted in modeling a process
o The perspective depends on the objective of the modeler (cfr.systems)
o Alternatively, complexity may be captured in different model -levels or layers by
defining sub-processes
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 38
Business Process Model and Notation – BPMN
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 35
,BPMN 2.0: An introductory Course in three levels
Level 1: Introduction
Préface (video)
Datamodes = sound, vision, … ChatGPT 4.0 can handle different datamodes.
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 36
,Running example
Suppose you want to develop an information system that allows a construction material
supplier to support and manage its full sales, manufacturing and financial process.
You are told that the order handling process typically goes as follows:
How do we describe or model this order handling process?
What should be included in the model, and what should be ignored?
- Normal language is not effective
- to extract what is relevant, essential and important in a more effective and intuitive way
- we care about the process, so use process modeller.
- learn to make abstraction from what is not important and focus on what is important
- To describe this we use BPMN
BPMN
This is a graphical language or notation to model or represent processes
that uses a limited number of graphical elements.
The process representation is formal, exhaustive and unambiguous.
o Strict meanings and uses of elements
o Strict rules to combine elements
Green : Start event
Orange : Intermediate event
Red : End event
So if we look back at our example we get:
3 lanes : Sales, Finance, Warehouse
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 37
, Note : Model does not leave room for interpretation?
Yes, every information you abstract gives room to interpretation.
This is normal, because it leave us the room to only focus on what is relevant.
Sometimes, certain activities are very complex so we represent them as a subprocess:
Fulfill order subprocess :
The model does leave room for interpretation dependent on how much you made abstraction
from. Each model abstracts away irrelevant things in the perspective of the modeller and leaves
space for interpretation. This gives the opportunity to focus on what’s relevant.
Remark:
o Activities by themselves can be very complex ; e.g. ‘check credit’
o This complexity might not be represented (typically isn’t) by a BPMN process model,
depending on the perspective,
the level of detail
adopted in modeling a process
o The perspective depends on the objective of the modeler (cfr.systems)
o Alternatively, complexity may be captured in different model -levels or layers by
defining sub-processes
Fadia Farhat | VUB 2023-2024 38
