I must admit, I was a little bit surprised about the result. For me BPMN is not flexible enough and it has too many modeling elements. While this is not the majority opinion, a grave minority has the same opinion.
Some comments:
I think BPMN is great – but we just had to add on a few bits to define value add and non value add activities so that larger maps had more to narrow your focus on areas that need attention
Alan Crean, CEO @ Process Master
I agree that this is necessary to not overload the modeler with too many modeling elements.
Flexibility is a vague term that can mean many things in different situations. I would define flexibility as the ability to make changes over time as needed to respond to changes in the situation. In order to be flexible, there have to be constructs that afford the kinds of changes you will need. For instance, flexibility implies some form of control. A common pattern might be that parts of the process diagram are controlled by different people. There is no consideration in BPMN for specifying who has control over different parts. Instead, there is a built in assumption that the entire diagram is designed and maintained as a whole. That reduces flexibility.
Different people controlling different parts of the process diagram is definitely a very important part of the flexibility requirements I see. There is no concept in BPMN for this. It may well be, that it is not possible to add this concept later, because of the current semantic of BPMN.
I consider BPMN still more as a (high level) programming language for automated processes which provides rather poor support for flexible human processes.
I agree.
Just one examples of too less flexibility: Consider a process where one task can be executed by different roles (e.g. via delegation). In which Lane should I place the task? Should I show it in the “Default”-Lane? Or a copy in any other related Lane? Or even draw it across multiple Lanes?
While I know that Lanes are just a graphical partition of the process and we could easily address the problem via performers (BPMN 2.0), this is not a graphical solution. Many users (and tools too) use Lanes synonymous to performers.
Interesting case.
I guess it depends on the tool you use. We have created a new tool generation which hides the complexity of the BPMN notation against the user by using intelligent algorithms which support a highly efficient modeling process.
Our BETA was anounced on Nov 10. Innovator for Business analysts will be available shortly. C. Bergner.
It is worth trying. However my doubts are that certain limitations in the metamodel can not be overcome by a tool. However a tool can improve.
We feel the technology driven approach of BPMN when it comes to high level process landscape description. This seems to be out of scope at least in the BPMN 1.x standard.BPMN is good for visualizing low level processes that ar candidates for workflow implementations.
I agree.
It’s really interesting to see your opinion. In my opinion BPMN has a workflow modeling background. That’s why it is good for workflow type of processes. However there are a lot more of other processes.