Comments on: The Great BPMN Debate http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/ BPM, Enterprise 2.0 and technology trends in business. Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:15:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Business analysis using BPMN | Aptero Solutions http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-18181 Business analysis using BPMN | Aptero Solutions Thu, 23 Dec 2010 11:06:29 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-18181 [...] As I blogged before during my time with Select Business Solutions, I’m drawn to elements of the separate arguments and research of Bruce Silver and Michael zur Muehlen and Jan Recker. There’s a great summary of the discussions by Sandy Kemsley on Column 2. [...] [...] As I blogged before during my time with Select
Business Solutions, I’m drawn to elements of the separate
arguments and research of Bruce Silver and Michael zur Muehlen and
Jan Recker. There’s a great summary of the discussions by
Sandy Kemsley on Column 2. [...]

]]> By: Easing the ‘complexity’ of BPMN | Application Development Tools http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-10922 Easing the ‘complexity’ of BPMN | Application Development Tools Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:03:33 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-10922 [...] consultants with a range of users of Select Architect. Further blogged debate by Bruce Silver and Sandy Kemsley, appears to have reached a broad [...] [...] consultants with a range of users of Select Architect. Further blogged debate by Bruce Silver and Sandy Kemsley, appears to have reached a broad [...]

]]> By: Column 2 by Sandy Kemsley : BPM and Model-Driven Development, SaaS and the economy http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7590 Column 2 by Sandy Kemsley : BPM and Model-Driven Development, SaaS and the economy Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:46:54 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7590 [...] part on BPM and model-driven development was written prior to the Great BPMN Debate, but there’s an obvious tie-in, since BPMN is the modeling language that’s typically [...] [...] part on BPM and model-driven development was written prior to the Great BPMN Debate, but there’s an obvious tie-in, since BPMN is the modeling language that’s typically [...]

]]> By: The Right Amount of BPMN « Go Flow http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7552 The Right Amount of BPMN « Go Flow Fri, 21 Mar 2008 05:07:33 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7552 [...] After a few months without much BPM discussion, then I blinked and found that I have been missing the Greate BPMN Debate. To bring you up to speed: Michael zur Muehlen and Jan Recker have been studying how people [...] [...] After a few months without much BPM discussion, then I blinked and found that I have been missing the Greate BPMN Debate. To bring you up to speed: Michael zur Muehlen and Jan Recker have been studying how people [...]

]]> By: Light BPM http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7515 Light BPM Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:39:21 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7515 "A good system analyst is a bad programmer" was the opening phrase of my system anlysis course. I am glad it was said loudly. Of course every programmer needs to do some of it sometimes. Right now it seems that BPM approaches create vagueness about the who is the right person to do what. I am concerned about companies don't see a consolidated methodology and therefore won't be excited about BPM implementation. Please read this myth-breaking article: "The State of BPM: Perspectives of an Industry Insider" http://www.bpm.com/BriefingRO.asp?Briefingid=31 “A good system analyst is a bad programmer” was the opening phrase of my system anlysis course. I am glad it was said loudly. Of course every programmer needs to do some of it sometimes.
Right now it seems that BPM approaches create vagueness about the who is the right person to do what. I am concerned about companies don’t see a consolidated methodology and therefore won’t be excited about BPM implementation.
Please read this myth-breaking article:
“The State of BPM: Perspectives of an Industry Insider”
http://www.bpm.com/BriefingRO.asp?Briefingid=31

]]> By: Sandy Kemsley http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7514 Sandy Kemsley Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:28:34 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7514 Light BPM, I appreciate your comment, although notice that it comes from the same IP address as "BPM Addict". I would much prefer if you use your real name, since I have had comment trolls who use this same technique before (multiple fake names from the same IP address). It sounds like you don't have a problem with (for example) propagating errors up to the top level for reporting, but rather are saying that maybe it doesn't need to be graphically represented that way, correct? Propagating errors up to a higher level in order to facilitate appropriate error handling is a common coding technique not because it's particularly efficient (which it's not) but because the person who designs the code needs to specify where the error handling will occur and how it will manifest. Business analysts who are modeling business processes need to think about the same thing: if an error occurs at some level, how will it be handled? BPMN provides a graphical method for them to propagate the errors up so that they're visible at correct level of the diagram, both for presentation purposes and to put the management of the error in the right place. Light BPM, I appreciate your comment, although notice that it comes from the same IP address as “BPM Addict”. I would much prefer if you use your real name, since I have had comment trolls who use this same technique before (multiple fake names from the same IP address).

It sounds like you don’t have a problem with (for example) propagating errors up to the top level for reporting, but rather are saying that maybe it doesn’t need to be graphically represented that way, correct? Propagating errors up to a higher level in order to facilitate appropriate error handling is a common coding technique not because it’s particularly efficient (which it’s not) but because the person who designs the code needs to specify where the error handling will occur and how it will manifest. Business analysts who are modeling business processes need to think about the same thing: if an error occurs at some level, how will it be handled? BPMN provides a graphical method for them to propagate the errors up so that they’re visible at correct level of the diagram, both for presentation purposes and to put the management of the error in the right place.

]]> By: Sandy Kemsley http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7513 Sandy Kemsley Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:42 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7513 BPM Addict, I agree that there's some question over who should be doing what in the entire spectrum of process discovery, modeling and design, although I disagree that programmers don't normally have strong systems analysis skills: if so, then they picked the wrong profession, since most programmers that I know (including me in a past life) always had to do some degree of systems analysis. Process analysis is a different story, and mostly programmers aren't going to do that primarily because they don't understand the nuances of the business process itself, not that they don't understand process analysis per se. The issue (as <a href="http://processdevelopments.blogspot.com/2008/03/my-concluding-nuance-on-bpmn.html" rel="nofollow">Tom Baeyens has stated</a>) is that even though business and IT people might both use BPMN to model a process, the business people are modeling the most effective business process, and the IT people are modeling the most efficient code (albeit from an abstracted viewpoint). That doesn't always produce the same models in BPMN, which means that somehow you have to be able to take the business process that the business person modeled and tweak it so that it will generate an efficient/complete executable without corrupting the original business process. BPM Addict, I agree that there’s some question over who should be doing what in the entire spectrum of process discovery, modeling and design, although I disagree that programmers don’t normally have strong systems analysis skills: if so, then they picked the wrong profession, since most programmers that I know (including me in a past life) always had to do some degree of systems analysis. Process analysis is a different story, and mostly programmers aren’t going to do that primarily because they don’t understand the nuances of the business process itself, not that they don’t understand process analysis per se.

The issue (as Tom Baeyens has stated) is that even though business and IT people might both use BPMN to model a process, the business people are modeling the most effective business process, and the IT people are modeling the most efficient code (albeit from an abstracted viewpoint). That doesn’t always produce the same models in BPMN, which means that somehow you have to be able to take the business process that the business person modeled and tweak it so that it will generate an efficient/complete executable without corrupting the original business process.

]]> By: Light BPM http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7512 Light BPM Mon, 17 Mar 2008 13:13:28 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7512 After reading Bruce Silver's article "Organizing Complex BPMN Models" I was asking myself at some point why should life be so hard? For example: "Exceptions at child levels should be propagated to top level to return a response..That often requires propagating the success or failure indication from its source at a deeply nested level up to the top level, and then sending the response from there..." Why does such a complexity has to be drawn? Isn't it better at some point to eave the graphical tools? I figure that if we need to write code to such case, we would do it in a much more elegant way. I guess the true need for the visual language is caried to the wrong places. I must confess that I am still considering myself a BPM beginner, but I punched on cards my first Fortran program. After reading Bruce Silver’s article “Organizing Complex BPMN Models” I was asking myself at some point why should life be so hard?
For example: “Exceptions at child levels should be propagated to top level to return a response..That often requires propagating the success or failure indication from its source at a deeply nested level up to the top level, and then sending the response from there…”
Why does such a complexity has to be drawn? Isn’t it better at some point to eave the graphical tools? I figure that if we need to write code
to such case, we would do it in a much more elegant way. I guess the true need for the visual language is caried to the wrong places.
I must confess that I am still considering myself a BPM beginner, but I punched on cards my first Fortran program.

]]> By: BPM Addict http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7510 BPM Addict Sun, 16 Mar 2008 05:31:52 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7510 Regarding what Michael says about the IT project in Sony: I use the presentation to support the need for the modeling etc... But please note that still IT people are the ones who perform the process analysis. As an X-programmer, I tend to think that system analysis or process analysis are not the strong side of programmers. (maybe it relates to a right/left brain thing..) On the other hand - business people have hard time with operating the tools. I think that the optimal target audience for this phase, which includes BPMN, better be clearly defined, identified and trained. Regarding what Michael says about the IT project in Sony: I use the presentation to support the need for the modeling etc… But please note that still IT people are the ones who perform the process analysis. As an X-programmer, I tend to think that system analysis or process analysis are not the strong side of programmers. (maybe it relates to a right/left brain thing..) On the other hand – business people have hard time with operating the tools. I think that the optimal target audience for this phase, which includes BPMN, better be clearly defined, identified and trained.

]]> By: links for 2008-03-14 « steinarcarlsen http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/comment-page-1/#comment-7502 links for 2008-03-14 « steinarcarlsen Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:18:05 +0000 http://www.column2.com/2008/03/the-great-bpmn-debate/#comment-7502 [...] Column 2 by Sandy Kemsley : The Great BPMN Debate (tags: bpmn) [...] [...] Column 2 by Sandy Kemsley : The Great BPMN Debate (tags: bpmn) [...]

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