Hey, BPM Friend! Today's talk is about BPMN! Today marks our first discussion on this topic, we'll still have other conversations on this subject in the future, because BPMN has a lot of details in the modeling of processes so we'll have to take it easy.
But, today, we're going to start by trying to understand the basics: what are the main elements of BPMN? Why are we going to talk about BPMN specifically? There are other notations, other process representation languages, such as EPC, for instance, but BPMN has become a fact standard in the market, including in the Brazilian market.
I's an extensive language, it's a language that is already in version 2. 0. It has a large amount of information, details, rules, so let's start at the beginning.
We have five groups, categories of main elements in BPMN. We have flow objects, connections, pools and lanes, data, and artifacts. Within each of these groups, we have some elements.
So let's start! I have three types of flow objects: activities, events, and gateways. What's the difference?
What is each of these elements? An activity represents an action, a task. It is atomic, it has to do with what I want to do in my process.
It's a step in my process. An event, it's different! It represents a temporal issue, a state that I reach in my process, after I execute a certain activity.
So, we always have to have this reasoning: The activity represents "what" and the event represents "when". This is a difference that helps us understand clearly. Both activities and events, in BPMN notation, they have different types.
We're not going to go into all these details today, and later on, we will talk about it. We have an e-book by dheka about BPMN notation where you can see all the details, examples, and tips, but today we are going to simplify it a little bit. In addition to activities and events, I've got the gateways.
What are gateways? Gateways are decision-making points within a process. So the gateways are the ones that will help me decide the possible paths for my process flow.
So, it's a different concept. Moving away from the category of flow objects, I have the category of connections. It also has three types of connections: sequence flows, associations, and message flows.
The sequence flows are the continuum arrows, they're the most common arrows, the most used connections to do, for example, connections between activities or between activities and events. Associations are dotted arrows, with a specific type of dotted line and they are widely used by us to link activities with artifacts and notes, for example. With general supplementary information, to the process.
Message flows are mainly used when I have messages passing between pools, when I have connections of information using messages. Then I work with this type of association. The third category is the pools and lanes, and this is important for us to take it easy because a lot of people get confused about it.
What's the difference between a pool and a lane? It's the same reasoning we have in real life. Imagine an Olympic swimming pool: so, the entire pool is a pool, right?
And inside that pool, I can put lanes for swimmers to go through in there. So when I'm representing a process flow, this process flow can be entirely within a pool, or it can have more than one pool. How do I know I have more than one pool?
When I have actors external to the process. Outsourced, customers, suppliers. So, I can have more than one pool, and inside a pool, I can place swimlanes for the different actors that perform activities in that process.
And those activities and events that we mentioned earlier, they´ll be distributed and organized within these lanes. The fourth group is the data group. What do I have here?
I've got data objects and databases. Data objects represent artifacts that I want to use in my process. It can be electronic documents or physical documents.
And databases represent repositories of information. We can use this to represent systems as well. And the fifth and last group is the group of artifacts themselves.
Then I have the group elements. A little dotted box that I can put around any number of activities, events and gateways when I want to group related things within my process. Within the same process, sometimes I have different themes, and I want to show these different themes.
This is optional, but I can work with this feature. And lastly, I have the notes. Annotations are also optional when I want to put some reminders, observations or rules about my process in a text box.
Then that's it! These are the main elements, for each of them, I have some cases, some variations, some types, and, mainly, many rules of use. But, that's for a next video.
Meanwhile, if you want more tips on your BPMN modeling, check out the links we've placed below about our blog posts, or download the e-book with a complete guide to BPMN notation. If you enjoyed this video, give it a like and share with your BPM Friends. If you have any questions and want more details, comment below and I'll reply A.
S. A. P, or send me a DM on Instagram at @dhekaconsult.
That's it, 'til next video!
