Business Process Analysis using BPMN

Business Process Analysis using BPMN

BPMN in Context

BPMN is a product of the Object Management Group, which has been an
international, open membership, not-for-profit computer standards consortium
since 1989 and whose board of directors includes representation from almost
all organizations that shape enterprise and internet computing today.

BPMN stands for Business Process Modelling Notation and it provides a
notation that is readily understandable by all stakeholders of the business,
including the business analysts who create the initial drafts of the processes,
the developers responsible for implementing the technology that will perform
the processes and the business itself, which will manage and monitor the
processes.

In addition to how expressive BPMN is, a key to its value is that with a suitable
tool, it can be used to generation executable BPEL, thus enabling BPMN to
create a standardized bridge between the business process design and the
process implementation using a Service Oriented Architecture.

BPMN defines a Business Process Diagram (BPD), which is based on a
flowcharting technique similar in nature to the UML Activity Diagram, but far
more expressive.

Overview

This hands-on course covers Business Process Modelling using the modelling
notation BPMN.

The course has a high proportion of practical exercises in which the attendees
use the knowledge they have gleaned to analyse, document and refine the
processes of a complex business. The practical work will make up at least
50% of the course. This will give the delegates confidence in applying the
strong theoretical knowledge gained throughout the course directly to their
project work.

Detailed Course Description

System Engineering and IT and the case for BPMN:

• Identify the need to model behaviour in business and engineering systems.
• Look at BPMN's relationship with SysML and UML
• Look at what BPMN and SOA can offer to software development.

Business processes and IT support:

• Identify the aim of a business model.
• Describe the basic concepts of a business process.
• Relate the business process to IT.
• Identify the inherent problems of traditional IT support.
• See that the motivation behind SOA and BPMN is to address these problems.

An Introduction to Service Oriented Architecture:

• Look at SOA as a new and valuable architecture to provide software support for business processes.
• BPEL generation from BPMN to execute the business process Web Services.
• The Enterprise Service Bus.
• A Registry or Repository... a single point of reference for services.
• The SOA rules engine.
• Business Activity Monitoring.

BPMN - the diagrams

The four categories of BPMN entities

The BPMN diagrams:

• The process map
• The process environment diagram
• The top level process diagram
• The lower level process diagrams
• The exception diagram.

A general good practice approach to business modelling
Some of the pitfalls in business modelling:

• Process Implementation
• Process Execution
• Process Monitoring.

BPMN - the notation

A through examination of:

• Flow objects
• Connecting Objects
• Swim Lanes
• Artefacts.

BPMN - advanced notation

• Activity tags
• An in depth look at Events
• BPMN Artefacts.

Advanced Modelling Structures

• Applying advanced BPMN notation to case studies
• Advanced business analysis constructs, using BPMN.

Objectives

By the end of this course the attendees will be able to use the full range of
BPMN notation to document businesses processes. This approach will be
equally suitable in applying the modelling techniques essential for gathering
the requirements and procedures of complex engineering systems as well as
applying the notation to traditional business analysis.

The attendees will also have had experience in producing each of the five
BPMN diagram types:

• The process map
• The process environment diagram
• The top level process diagram
• The lower level process diagrams
• The exception diagram.

The course will also introduce the concepts of Service Oriented Architecture
and show how the BPMN language can be used to capture business
processes for the automatic generation of BPEL, which forms a cornerstone of
the SOA platform.