Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
I had the opportunity to attend a Gartner briefing on IT Sourcing in Dubai in May 2014. I found the session very valuable and it has made me think about some new approaches as we continue to be pressured to cut costs in higher education IT service delivery. Frank Ridder and Alexa Bona were […]
The post Notes from Gartner IT Sourcing Forum – Dubai May 2014 appeared first on Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education.
For as long as I’ve been working with companies to get more out of their IT investments, we have used the term “IT Effectiveness.” The approaches for helping IT organizations get the most out of what they do have been studied and applied by many leaders and consultants for a long time. Some refer to this discussion as “doing more with less” but I’ve argued that it’s more about doing the most important things with […]
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In the Netherlands we have this saying when we want to describe how we “translate” complex documents in esoteric language for a larger audience: “Jip en Janneke taal” (the language of Jip and Janneke). Jip and Janneke are the names of the two main protagonists in a series of children’s novels by a great Dutch writer, Annie […]
In this blog I elaborate about the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard, which advantages it brings you and how you should use this standard in a powerful manner. BPMN is the de facto international standard for modeling business processes. Version 2.0 was released in 2011 and the standard is maintained by the Object Management Group. It is an extensive standard with formal semantics which enables you to describe your business processes up to the level of automating the processes by a process engine. For my work I use BPMN 2.0 to create process models and I think it is a powerful notation for describing business processes. However, you need to keep some cautions in mind. By presenting the advantages and some guidelines of applying the standard, I hope to make you enthusiastic for this beautiful standard!
First of all, I would like to present three major advantages of using BPMN 2.0:
Like English is a language used for verbal and written communication all over the world, BPMN is an international graphical ‘language’ (standard) that is used to communicate all over the process world. Since it is universally adopted as a process modeling standard, stakeholders outside the organization like auditors, partnering organizations and system implementers understand this standard. This enables you to communicate about your business processes in a clear and consistent manner.
BPMN 2.0 is tool- and vendor independent. The standard is free to use and has a standardized underlying XML-scheme which makes you flexible with respect to contracting tool vendors when using tool support for describing or executing your business processes.
BPMN 2.0 is a very rich standard with a lot of different concepts. It enables you to describe your processes in great detail and use the right semantics for each of the details. The nature of the language enables you to bridge the gap from IT to business (and vice versa) and can be used to execute processes directly in an automation engine. Especially the many possibilities of modeling event driven behavior makes BPMN very powerful compared to other modelling languages.
However, some firm critics exist because BPMN 2.0 should be too complicated for business stakeholders. I can understand that the BPMN 2.0 standard does become complicated when you ‘just simply’ start using the standard and all of the included concepts. Therefore, I want to present you some valuable tips to apply BPMN in practice:
Less is more: The bottom line is easy; the on the eye endless amount of concepts are not part of the standard to communicate to business stakeholders. To a certain level BPMN is quite intuitively to understand, but a tremendous amount of concepts should not be used to communicate to business stakeholders. Think about your own language; how many of the words in your own language (count them in a dictionary) do you use to communicate to a three-year-old kid to make him something clear? And your kid already had three years to learn that language! Most of the business stakeholders simply do not speak BPMN on a mature level so you should adapt the use of the language to your target audience. Only use those concepts that are essential to communicate your message!
Consistency results in clarity: Except for communicating BPMN process models to business stakeholders, applying BPMN in a simple manner also has the advantage of securing consistency in the different process models created in your organization. This requires clear conventions between the users of the standard: which concepts do we use, how do we use them and how do we name them in a recognizable way? Besides that, conventions with respect to lay-out are important for bringing your message in an unambiguous way to your business stakeholders.
Hopefully this offers you my perspective on using BPMN 2.0. Although BPMN is a great standard, the creation of BPMN models is not an end in itself. Above presented tips may help you to use BPMN in an effective manner. The ultimate goal of creating process models is to deliver value to your stakeholder(s). Since value is expressed in terms of benefits that are perceived by the stakeholder, the stakeholder is the starting point of creating process models. The starting point is therefore to identify your stakeholder and what information he needs in a process model! If you do so, I am sure that BPMN brings you the value you are looking for!
Learn more about BPMN during our BPMN Foundation training course. Do you have any additional do’s or don’ts for using BPMN 2.0? Please share by leaving a comment!
In this blog I elaborate about the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard, which advantages it brings you and how you should use this standard in a powerful manner. BPMN is the de facto international standard for modeling business processes. Version 2.0 was released in 2011 and the standard is maintained by the Object Management Group. It is an extensive standard with formal semantics which enables you to describe your business processes up to the level of automating the processes by a process engine. For my work I use BPMN 2.0 to create process models and I think it is a powerful notation for describing business processes. However, you need to keep some cautions in mind. By presenting the advantages and some guidelines of applying the standard, I hope to make you enthusiastic for this beautiful standard!
First of all, I would like to present three major advantages of using BPMN 2.0:
Like English is a language used for verbal and written communication all over the world, BPMN is an international graphical ‘language’ (standard) that is used to communicate all over the process world. Since it is universally adopted as a process modeling standard, stakeholders outside the organization like auditors, partnering organizations and system implementers understand this standard. This enables you to communicate about your business processes in a clear and consistent manner.
BPMN 2.0 is tool- and vendor independent. The standard is free to use and has a standardized underlying XML-scheme which makes you flexible with respect to contracting tool vendors when using tool support for describing or executing your business processes.
BPMN 2.0 is a very rich standard with a lot of different concepts. It enables you to describe your processes in great detail and use the right semantics for each of the details. The nature of the language enables you to bridge the gap from IT to business (and vice versa) and can be used to execute processes directly in an automation engine. Especially the many possibilities of modeling event driven behavior makes BPMN very powerful compared to other modelling languages.
However, some firm critics exist because BPMN 2.0 should be too complicated for business stakeholders. I can understand that the BPMN 2.0 standard does become complicated when you ‘just simply’ start using the standard and all of the included concepts. Therefore, I want to present you some valuable tips to apply BPMN in practice:
Less is more: The bottom line is easy; the on the eye endless amount of concepts are not part of the standard to communicate to business stakeholders. To a certain level BPMN is quite intuitively to understand, but a tremendous amount of concepts should not be used to communicate to business stakeholders. Think about your own language; how many of the words in your own language (count them in a dictionary) do you use to communicate to a three-year-old kid to make him something clear? And your kid already had three years to learn that language! Most of the business stakeholders simply do not speak BPMN on a mature level so you should adapt the use of the language to your target audience. Only use those concepts that are essential to communicate your message!
Consistency results in clarity: Except for communicating BPMN process models to business stakeholders, applying BPMN in a simple manner also has the advantage of securing consistency in the different process models created in your organization. This requires clear conventions between the users of the standard: which concepts do we use, how do we use them and how do we name them in a recognizable way? Besides that, conventions with respect to lay-out are important for bringing your message in an unambiguous way to your business stakeholders.
Hopefully this offers you my perspective on using BPMN 2.0. Although BPMN is a great standard, the creation of BPMN models is not an end in itself. Above presented tips may help you to use BPMN in an effective manner. The ultimate goal of creating process models is to deliver value to your stakeholder(s). Since value is expressed in terms of benefits that are perceived by the stakeholder, the stakeholder is the starting point of creating process models. The starting point is therefore to identify your stakeholder and what information he needs in a process model! If you do so, I am sure that BPMN brings you the value you are looking for!
Learn more about BPMN during our BPMN Foundation training course. Do you have any additional do’s or don’ts for using BPMN 2.0? Please share by leaving a comment!
In this blog I elaborate about the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) standard, whichadvantages it brings you and how you should use this standard in a powerful manner. BPMN is the de facto international standard for modeling business processe…
By Loren K. Bayes, Director, Global Marketing Communications Enabling Boundaryless Information Flow™ continued in Boston on Tuesday, July 22. Allen Brown, CEO and President of The Open Group welcomed attendees with an overview of the company’s second quarter results. The Open … Continue reading →
This is the first time I’ve done this, so I’m hoping that my friends will contribute your opinions: I’ve created a survey asking a few basic questions about how your Enterprise Architecture program is valued, or not valued, by your organization.
KwikSurvey Poll – Does your Enterprise Architecture program deliver value?
Note that this is a free survey tool that doesn’t allow me to collect text responses unless I pay, which I didn’t, so there are no text response fields. If you want to comment on the survey questions or assumptions, please jump over to LinkedIn and comment in this thread:
LinkedIn Discussion – Do you have an effective or ineffective EA Program
All comments are anonymous. I will publish the results on this blog. This is just an informal data collection exercise but one that I think may provide a little insight into how you and your peers measure the value of your Enterprise Architecture program.
Last time I talked about the untold benefits of an Enterprise Data Model as a Reference Architecture for the Connected Enterprise. This week I would like to discuss the most valuable asset in any company, Data.
Good Data: Your Most Valuable Asset
An…
In my opinion, the importance of Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) cannot be overemphasized. We are in an information driven world, full stop. This becomes even more clear as we look into the future of technology. As you can see from the Gartner 2014 strategic technologies list (http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2603623), many if not most are all predicated on […]
The post The State of Enterprise Information Architecture appeared first on Mike J Walker.
In my opinion, the importance of Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA) cannot be overemphasized. We are in an information driven world, full stop. This becomes even more clear as we look into the future of technology. As you can see from the Gartner 2014 strategic technologies list (http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2603623), many if not most are all predicated on […]
The post The State of Enterprise Information Architecture appeared first on Mike J Walker.
This is the first time I’ve done this, so I’m hoping that my friends will contribute your opinions: I’ve created a survey asking a few basic questions about how your Enterprise Architecture program is valued, or not valued, by your organization. KwikSurvey Poll – Does your Enterprise Architecture program deliver value? Note that this is…