This document summarizes research on common mistakes made when modeling business processes using BPMN notation. 15 process modeling "anti-patterns" were identified through analysis of student-designed process models from 2002-2007. Each anti-pattern is described, including potential impacts and proposed solutions. The most common anti-patterns involved improperly connecting elements, such as activities not being connected within a pool or sequence flows crossing process or pool boundaries. The research aims to improve process modeling education and tools to prevent such mistakes and improve model quality.
Fundamental modeling constructs of BPMN 2.0 - Activity, Gateway, Sequence Flow, Pool and Lane. Part of the Business Process Management coursework at Stevens Institute of Technology.
Fundamental modeling constructs of BPMN 2.0 - Activity, Gateway, Sequence Flow, Pool and Lane. Part of the Business Process Management coursework at Stevens Institute of Technology.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)Peter R. Egli
Overview of Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) language for modeling business processes.
When implementing business processes, there is usually a large gap between the business semantics (process, activity, participant, orchestration, choreography, data items etc.) and the technical implementation languages (REST, WSDL, transport protocol, message bus etc.). BPMN has the goal of bridging this gap by providing a standard notation for describing business processes plus a standard mapping of this notation into an executable description language like WSBPEL. The BPMN 2.0 standard even allows executing BPMN business models directly without the need of a translation.
The core notation elements of BPMN are flow objects to model activities and events, data objects to model pieces of information, connecting objects to model information and control flow, and swimlanes to model process participants. Four different diagram types allow the modeling of processes, process choreographies, collaboration between participants and conversations.
BPM Fundamentals: Develop Your Game Plan For BPM SuccessClay Richardson
Presentation on BPM fundamentals at PegaWorld. Introduces business process professionals to drivers for bpm, defining the business case, evaluating ROI, and when/where to use technology.
Design your Business, Model your Architecture (presentation by Marc Lankhorst...Patrick Van Renterghem
Presentation by Marc Lankhorst of BiZZdesign at I.T. Works/LoQutus meetup on July 1st, 2014 @Vlerick School. See http://www.meetup.com/The-big-pICTure-how-ICT-changes-business-and-society/events/181256842/ for full details on this meetup.
This is the first BPMN poster, which was developed to facilitate learning of BPMN. It includes notation version 1.0 as well some patterns and anti-patterns of its use. It was primary developed on https://sourceforge.net/projects/itposter/
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)Peter R. Egli
Overview of Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) language for modeling business processes.
When implementing business processes, there is usually a large gap between the business semantics (process, activity, participant, orchestration, choreography, data items etc.) and the technical implementation languages (REST, WSDL, transport protocol, message bus etc.). BPMN has the goal of bridging this gap by providing a standard notation for describing business processes plus a standard mapping of this notation into an executable description language like WSBPEL. The BPMN 2.0 standard even allows executing BPMN business models directly without the need of a translation.
The core notation elements of BPMN are flow objects to model activities and events, data objects to model pieces of information, connecting objects to model information and control flow, and swimlanes to model process participants. Four different diagram types allow the modeling of processes, process choreographies, collaboration between participants and conversations.
BPM Fundamentals: Develop Your Game Plan For BPM SuccessClay Richardson
Presentation on BPM fundamentals at PegaWorld. Introduces business process professionals to drivers for bpm, defining the business case, evaluating ROI, and when/where to use technology.
Design your Business, Model your Architecture (presentation by Marc Lankhorst...Patrick Van Renterghem
Presentation by Marc Lankhorst of BiZZdesign at I.T. Works/LoQutus meetup on July 1st, 2014 @Vlerick School. See http://www.meetup.com/The-big-pICTure-how-ICT-changes-business-and-society/events/181256842/ for full details on this meetup.
This is the first BPMN poster, which was developed to facilitate learning of BPMN. It includes notation version 1.0 as well some patterns and anti-patterns of its use. It was primary developed on https://sourceforge.net/projects/itposter/
Multi-Perspective Comparison of Business Processes Variants Based on Event LogsMarlon Dumas
Paper presentation on log-based comparison of business processes, delivered at the 37th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER'2018). Research conducted jointly by Hoang Nguyen, Marlon Dumas, Marcello La Rosa, and Arthur H.M. ter Hofstede. Paper available at: http://kodu.ut.ee/~dumas/pubs/er2018comparison.pdf
Mathematical models play a fundamental role in many scientific and en- gineering fields in today’s world. They are used for example in geotechnics to evalute the hillslope stability, in weather science to predict weather trends and produce weather reports, in structural design to study the resistance to stress, and in fluid dynamics to compute fluid flows and air flows.
Consequently mathematical models are evolving all the time: more and more new numerical methods are being invented to solve the Partial Dif- ferential Equations (PDE)s that describe physical problems with increasing precision, and more and more complex and efficient processor units are being created to reduce the computational time.
Therefore, the code into which the mathematical models are translated has to be “dynamic” in order to be easily updated on the basis of the con- tinuous developments (Formetta et al. (2014) [16]).
On the other hand, completely different physical problems are often de- scribed using similar PDEs. For this reason, the numerical methods which provide solutions to different problems can be the same. This suggest the implementation of an IT infrastructure that hosts a standard structure for solving PDEs and that can serve various disciplines with the minimum of hassles.
This work is focused on the application of what is envisioned above, with the main purpose of the creation of an abstract code for implementing every type of mathematical model described by PDEs.
We work on hydrological topics but we hope to design a structure of general interest. Obviously the final goal of any work of this type is to find a proper numerical solver, and therefore, part of the thesis is devoted to the analysis of the problem under scrutiny, and the description of the solution found.
Growing plants and vegetables is not only a great hobby, it is also a healthy and sustainable way of obtaining food and medicine. Nowadays, not every person has access to a piece of land nor the time to take care of crops. This situation intensifies in urban areas, where most people live in small spaces and have busy lifestyles.
The aim of this project is to build an automated grow box to allow users to produce plants and vegetables indoors in a time-saving and inexpensive way. In order to achieve this, the system must provide everything that plants need to grow healthy, such as nutrients, air, water, light, temperature and space.
This report covers the whole process that has been undertaken to complete and reflect on the project, classified in the following main sections: introduction, investigation, design, development and evaluation.
Due to the nature of this project, research is not only limited to the area of Software Engineering.
This project includes two deliverables: A plastic container with electric components attached where the plants can grow and a front-end application that allows the end user to interact with and monitor the system.
Process State vs. Object State: Modeling Best Practices for Simple Workflows ...Thorsten Franz
Modeling Best Practices for Simple Workflows and Reusable Business Objects.
Making the right design decisions when modeling your BusinessObjects helps keeping your workflows simple and ensures optimal reusability and stability of your BusinessObjects. In this Webcast, we will discuss some criteria and best practices for what goes into the BusinessObjects and what goes into the process model.
Speaker: Thorsten Franz, AOK Systems
Predstavitev (keynote) na konferenci Zlati kamen 2019 - Občine prihodnosti, 7. 3. 2019:
Pametna mesta, tehnologije, standardi, primeri študentskih projektov, študijski program Menedžment pametnih mest, DOBA fakulteta, igrifikacija učenja
Sustainability, social innovations and information technologyTomislav Rozman
Is a bitcoin a social innovation? Is it sustainable? It depends on the point of view. Who is a sustainable leader? Can you learn about it to become one?
A result of TeachSus project, presented on 15. Feb. 2019 in Ljubljana, Slovenia (Multiplier Event).
Growth hacking and gamification - presentation Tomislav Rozman
3 examples of gamification and the results of the analysis among the incubators. PBL, journey, mission, quest, online learning course.
Presented at the conference in Zadar, Sept. 2017
By enGaging project.
Pregledno gradivo za predmet "Poslovna informatika"
6. del: Podatkovna baza, E-R modeliranje, tabele, entitete, povezave, poročila, vnosne maske, OpenOffice Base
Dodiplomski študij, DOBA Fakulteta za uporabne poslovne in družbene študije Maribor
Pregledno gradivo za predmet "Poslovna informatika"
5. del: informacijska varnost, neprekinjeno delovanje, gesla, arhiviranje, zaunost, dostop, socialno inženirstvo, e-pošta, virusi, piratstvo, avtorske pravice
Dodiplomski študij, DOBA Fakulteta za uporabne poslovne in družbene študije Maribor
Poslovna informatika 4: Razvoj in management informatikeTomislav Rozman
Pregledno gradivo za predmet "Poslovna informatika"
4. del: razvoj informacijskih sistemov, specifikacija zahtev, analiza, načrtovanje, management informatike, informacijska arhitektura, licenciranje
Dodiplomski študij, DOBA Fakulteta za uporabne poslovne in družbene študije Maribor
Poslovna informatika 3: e-poslovanje in digitalizacijaTomislav Rozman
Pregledno gradivo za predmet "Poslovna informatika"
3. del: e-poslovanje, B2B, B2C, B2A, e-plačevanje, informacijski razvoj podjetja
Dodiplomski študij, DOBA Fakulteta za uporabne poslovne in družbene študije Maribor
Poslovna informatika 2: Podpora upravljanju in infomacijska analizaTomislav Rozman
Pregledno gradivo za predmet "Poslovna informatika"
2. del: podpora upravljanju, podatkovno modeliranje, podatkovne kocke, informacijska analiza, OLAP
Dodiplomski študij, DOBA Fakulteta za uporabne poslovne in družbene študije Maribor
Pregledno gradivo za predmet "Poslovna informatika"
1. del: uvod v poslovno informatiko, poslovni informacijski sistemi, terminologija, podpora upravljanju
Dodiplomski študij, DOBA Fakulteta za uporabne poslovne in družbene študije Maribor
Growth hacking / Gamification - Case study (7)Tomislav Rozman
Growth hacking - Case study
enGaging project, slides from Gamification and Growth hacking academy training in Ancona (Italy)
www.engaging-project.eu
Slide set: 7.
Growth hacking - Content marketing
enGaging project, slides from Gamification and Growth hacking academy training in Ancona (Italy)
www.engaging-project.eu
Slide set: 3.
5 tips - how to become irreplaceable member of any project teamTomislav Rozman
I'm participating in several international projects (for more than 15 years) and I can assure you if you ignore these 5 tips, you will make someone's life ... very unpleasant.
Managing your inbox is easy, right?
Your employees know how to communicate, right?
Your contacts are responsive, never lost emails, don’t have excuses, right?
See the example of email management strategy and processes.
The slideshow includes overview of EU project proposal preparation process. It is specific to Erasmus+ Key Action 2 - Strategic partnerships. Proposal preparation process for other calls may vary.
Achieving sustainable development by integrating it into the business proces...Tomislav Rozman
The purpose of the article is to present an approach how to integrate sustainability related topics into an organization’s management system. As a starting point and connecting tissue, we use a process-oriented approach (BPM) for managing companies and then apply sustainability dimensions (economic, ecologic, and social) to it. Using this approach we do not change existing or already established management systems of companies, but we adapt it by modifying company vision, strategy and most importantly, management and core processes.
Integrating sustainability related processes into organization management system prevents “fire-fighting” and ad-hoc activities, which are performed by companies to comply with the increasing number of sustainability related standards.
In addition, we present two managerial trainings (business process management and sustainability management), which when combined, will enable managers to adapt to today’s highly competitive business environment.
The concept presented here is a novel approach under the ECQA (European Certification and Qualification Organization), which will allow on-demand clustering of managerial skills and trainings (BPM and sustainability management).
The results presented are particularly useful for process analysts, quality managers, sustainability managers, social responsibility managers and similar professional profiles in order to improve their companies’ activities and processes with respect to the sustainable development values.
Analysis of Most Common Process Modelling Mistakes in BPMN Process Models
1. 1
Analysis of Most Common Process
Modelling Mistakes in BPMN Process Models
dr. Tomislav Rozman, Gregor Polančič, doc. dr. Romana Vajde Horvat
26. – 28. September 2007
Potsdam, Germany
Faculty of Electrical
Engineering and Computer
Science
University of Maribor, Slovenia
Institute of Informatics
2. 2
Contents of the article
Introduction
What is Business Process Management &
Modelling
A little bit of history
Similar work
Research method
Findings – process model antipatterns
Conclusions
Discussion
3. 3
What is Business Process
management?
... a field of knowledge at the intersection between
management and information technology,
encompassing methods, techniques and tools to
design, enact, control, and analyze operational
business processes involving humans, organizations,
applications, documents and other sources of
information1 or
...most overused word in the last few years?
1 van der Aalst, W.M.P., ter Hofstede, A.H.M. and Weske, M.: "Business Process Management: A Survey", in Business Process Management,
Proceedings of the First International Conference. Springer Verlag, 2003.
4. 4
Business process management /
business process lifecycle
Preparation
+
BP Modelling
+
BP Assessment
+
BP
Dissemination
+
Report a
'lesson learned'
Compare and
align with
business goal
BP
Implementation
+
no
yes
is responsible for
is responsible for
Defined process
needed
are responsible for
is responsible for
is responsible for
is responsible for
is responsible for
is responsible for
is responsible for
collaborate
Quality
Manager
Process
Performers
Process
Designer
Quality
Manager
IT Expert
Process
Owner
Process
Owner
Process
Performers
Process
Owner
Automate
the
process?
BP Usage BP tracking
& analysing
BP not needed
anymore
BP tailoring
needed
Performing BP
5. 5
What is (Business) Process
modelling?
Better: Discrete process modelling
Goal: to capture the knowledge how people
(machines) perform their work (or, how we would like
them to perform it)
Main purpose: to ensure at least repeatability of
organisation's processes
Plethora of methods, methodologies, notations,…
... but no silver bullet
6. 6
... Some process modelling
notations
EPC,
ARIS,
UML Activity diagrams,
OPM – Object Process Methodology,
BPMN – Business Process Modelling notation
Ontologically most complete (Recker et al, 2005)
7. 7
BPMN notation
Visual representation of (business) processes - workflow
It defines graphical symbols and additional attributes for
process description
Covers the process modelling concepts and patterns very well
Easy to learn
Based on: EPC, Petri nets, Activity diagrams (UML)
Defines the mapping to execution languages (XPDL, BPEL4WS)
Merging with UML?
8. 8
A quick introduction to BPMN notation (1/2)
name name name
~
name
~
name name
name
Sequence
Message flow
Association
name, condition,
code or message
name or message
Atomic activity - task Looping activity Ad-hoc process
Looping ad-hoc process Process (hidden details) Looping process (hidden details)
Process with details
Branching (parallel execution)
A
B
C D
Data-based OR-decision
A
B
C
D
condition
1
condition
2
default
Event-based OR-decision
A
B
C
D
1 day
mssage 1
message 2
Merging
A
B
C
D
9. 9
A quick introduction to BPMN notation (2/2)
name or source
name or type
name or result
Start
event
End
event
Intermediate
event
Message Timer Process
error
Compensate Rule Link Multiple
mesage
Pool
name
mesage
message
events
gateways
pools and
messages
10. 10
A little bit of history
BPMN notation has been taught since 2001 (University of
Maribor, Faculty of electrical engineering and computer
science)
BSc. Students of Information Systems, 8th semester
“Information processing organization and management”
practical lectures
The aim: (business) processes modeling, software
standards, software projects organisation
The modeling tool: Modified Microsoft Visio (‘’in-house’
symbols stencil)
11. 11
Similar work
Project ‘anti-pattern’
= a pitfall, or, set of classes of commonly-
reinvented bad solutions to problems
= commonly repeated bad practices
workflow patterns
control flow patterns, resource patterns,
data patterns and exception handling
patterns
12. 12
The problem
BPMN does not prevent us to design bad
process models, including syntactical,
semantic and pragmatically errors.
Poor quality of process models can cause
poor quality software requirements resulting
in a poor information system.
13. 13
Research method
Research question: What are the most common mistakes
when modelling business process diagrams using BPMN
notation?
a multiple case study research
Analysis of the process models (designed by students) from
2002 to 2007 by three independent persons
Extraction & classification of most common mistakes -> process
anti-pattern
Syntactical, semantic and pragmatic mistakes
14. 14
Findings
A set of 15 proces model anti-patterns
Connecting elements (1-9)
Other mistakes (9-15)
Description of the antipatterns:
Name,
Possible practical impacts,
Type of error,
Proposed solution.
15. 15
Pattern 1. Activities in one
pool are not connected
PoolAPoolB
Task C Task D
Task A Task B ...
...
...
...
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Activities in one pool
are not connected
PoolAPoolB
Task C Task D
Task A Task B ...
...
...
...
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
16. 16
Pattern 2. Process does not
contain a start eventPoolA
Task A Task B ...
Message Event
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Process does not
contain a start event
PoolA
Task A Task B ...
Message Event
Start Event
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
17. 17
Pattern 3. Process does not
contain an end event
PoolA
Task A
Task B...
Task C
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Process does not
contain an end event PoolA
Task A Task B...
Task C
End event
Terminate
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
18. 18
Pattern 4. Sequence flow
crosses process boundary
Process X
Task A Task B...
...
Task C
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Sequence flow crosses
process boundary
Process X
Task A
Task B
...
...
Task C
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
19. 19
Pattern 5. Sequence flow
crosses pool boundary
PoolA
Task A Task C
PoolB
Task B Task D
Message flow AB Message flow DC
Task E
Task F
...
...
End event
Start Event
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Sequence flow
crosses pool boundary
PoolA
Task A Task C
PoolB
Task B
Task D
Message flow AB
Message flow DC
Task E
Task F
Message flow EF
......
......
Start Event
End event
End event
Start Event
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
20. 20
Pattern 6. Gateway receives,
evaluates or sends a message
PoolA
Task A Task B ......
Message X Message Y
Condition
Task C ...
PoolB
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Gateway receives,
evaluates or sends a message
PoolA
Task A
Task B ...
...
Message X MessageY
Condition
Task C ...
Analysing
message X
Send
message Y
...
PoolB
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
21. 21
Pattern 7. Intermediate events are
placed on the edge of the pool
PoolA
Task A Task B
Start event
End event
Intemediate
event M1
Intermediate
event M2
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Intermediate events
are placed on the edge of the pool
PoolB
Task A Task B
Start event
End event
Intemediate
event M1
Intemediate
event M2
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
22. 22
Pattern 8. Hanging intermediate
events or activities
PoolA
Task A Task c
Start event
End event
Intermediate event
Task B
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Hanging
intermediate events or activities PoolB
Task A Task C
Start event End event
Intermediate event
Task B
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
23. 23
Pattern 9. Each lane in the
pool contains start event
Start event 1
Task A
End event
Start event 2
Task B
End event
Start event 3
Task C
End event
Lane1Lane2Lane3
PoolA
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Each lane in the pool contains start event
Start event 1
Task A
End event
Task B
Task C
Lane1Lane2Lane3
PoolA
Lane1Lane2Lane3
PoolA
Task A
End event
Task B
End event
Task C
End event
Start event
Start event 1
Start event 2
Start event 3
Fig. 1. Two possibilities of correct patterns
24. 24
Pattern 10. Incorrect use of
time events
Task A Task B...
Task B ...
Delay
Exception
Time event used as a
DELAY mechanism
Time event representing
task DURATION
Fig. 1. : Anti-pattern: Incorrect use of time events
Solution: the meaning!
25. 25
Pattern 11. Sequence and message
event represent data flow
Task A Task B ......
Message
AB
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Sequence and
message event represent data flow
Task A Task B ......
Message
AB
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
26. 26
Pattern 12. Event is used as a
message flow source
Task A Task B ......
Message
A Message
B
A
B
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Event is used as a
message flow source
Task A
Send
message B
......
Message
A
Message
B
Task C
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
27. 27
Pattern 13. Improper use of
flow elements
Starting task
A
Receiving
document X
...
Task A
finished
Document
X
...
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Improper use of flow
elements
Task A... ...
Document
X
Event X
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
29. 29
Pattern 15. Exception flow is not
connected to the exception
Task A... ...
Duration
Fig. 1. Anti-pattern: Exception flow is
not connected to the exception
Task A...
...
Duration
...
Normal flow
Exception flow
Fig. 2. Correct pattern
30. 30
Frequencies of the anti-patterns
appearance
1
2
4
5
6
7
89
10
11
12
13
14
15
3
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
Exception is modelled, but not
connected
Process does not
contain a end event
Sequence flow crosses
process boundary
Hanging intermediate events or
activities
Starting timer placed instead of
intermediate timer
31. 31
Conclusions
We identified unique collection of most common
process modelling mistakes or anti-patterns
Possible practical problems:
unwanted delays in the process performance,
non-execution of the activities or
simply ambiguity which could hinder the process
performers at their work
Practical implications:
Improvement of the learning materials
Design of A2 poster with anti-patterns & solutions
Possible improvement of the BPMN
Improvements of BPMN modelling tool: verification!
34. Last but not least
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And of course, don’t forget to reuse it (with contribution) in your projects.
If you want to learn how to identify, model, optimize processes, you can attend
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