BPMN modeling

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) is a language for modeling business processes. It provides a graphical notation to enable businesses to design, implement, deploy and execute their business process models. BPMN offers an intuitive, graphical representation of your business process that can be easily understood by all members of your team regardless of technical skill.

BPMN has been around since 1998, but its popularity as a standard for documenting processes has grown as businesses have embraced digital transformation. The goal of this article is to teach you how to use BPMN effectively in your organization.

What is a process model?

Process models are used in both software and non-software businesses to define the details of each task required to deliver your products or services. These are used to help the organization identify in which stages their software, whether it’s an e-commerce site or an accounting software, processes take to complete an order, or deliver a new product.

For example, in a BPMN flow chart, the business case, feature list, requirements, and customer insights are represented by a process model. The details of a process model are determined by the organization’s modeling team at the beginning of a project. A process model will be different for each task that needs to be completed.

It also enables the organization to analyze the flow of data throughout the system and identify bottlenecks or bottlenecks to handle in order to minimize the time it takes to complete certain tasks. How does it work? Like other business processes models, BPMN doesn’t merely describe processes. It also offers an intuitive and graphical description of each step in your process.

Why is BPMN popular?

Many organizations, from small companies to large multinationals, find BPMN the easiest, most effective, and popular process modeling language out there. Why? The short answer is that BPMN does a great job of handling the design and implementation of business processes without requiring the use of a middle-management manual to describe the process.

BPMN focuses on modeling the process, not just the workflow, or the code behind the process. It does not require an end-to-end view of the complete workflow. And because BPMN supports intuitive graphical representations, it makes it easy for business professionals to visualize how processes will work and to understand the results of each step.

What are the benefits of using BPMN for business process modeling?

BPMN is an industry-standard specification that provides standards to describe business processes in an intuitive and visually descriptive manner. Business processes can be defined and tracked in a way that eliminates the need for business experts to physically perform business operations.

When using BPMN, you’re creating a digital transformation audit trail. This type of audit trail can be created in both Agile and Waterfall development methodologies, or even in a hybrid model. Your audit trail can be shared across an organization. When the steps to complete a process are well defined, an auditing team can follow the exact same steps to verify the process is being executed the way it should be.

Additional benefits to your business process include:

  • Easy to understand and translate to business processes in terms of IEO, ERP systems, CRM software.
  • Provides a graphical, machine-independent, schema-independent structure.
  • Allows flow-based design, as it has no formalization.

In what industries can you use BPMN to create process models?

BPMN is commonly used for processes across most industries. If your business is a manufacturing business, chances are good that BPMN is being used to design and develop products.

Additionally, BPMN is used to create logistics processes. Business process modeling can be used by all types of organizations, including retail businesses, tech-based businesses, hospitals, and government agencies.
In BPMN, there are two major categories of processes. The first are business process models that are concerned with defining the flow of the work to be performed within the organization, and the second are modeling processes that are concerned with defining and tracking the organizational structure and implementation of workflows. In a BPMN-based system, these two categories are considered the “Waterfall” and the “Agile” models, respectively.