(Mintzberg) BPMN Process Performance Measures Quiz

BPMN Elements

• A Data Object captures an artifact required (input) or produced (output) by an activity and can be physical or electronic.
• A Lane captures a resource sub-class within a resource class by partitioning a pool, often used to model departments, internal roles, software systems, or equipment.
• A Data Store is a place containing data objects that must be persisted beyond the duration of a process instance, used by an activity to store (as output) or retrieve (as input) data objects.

Message Flow and Text Annotations

• A Message Flow represents a flow of information or materials between two process parties (Pools).
• A Text Annotation is a mechanism to provide additional text information to the model reader, but doesn't affect the flow of tokens through the process.

Resources

• An Active Resource is a process participant, software system, or equipment.
• A Resource Class is a group of (active) resources that are interchangeable, e.g., a role, an organizational unit, or the whole organization.

Sub-Processes

• A sub-process is a reusable process that can be stored in a separate file and invoked via a "call" activity.
• Use sub-processes to improve understanding by breaking down large models, identify parts that should be repeated, executed multiple times in parallel, interrupted, or compensated.
• Sub-processes have their own start and end events and can have message flows crossing their boundaries.

Modeling Guidelines

• Use sub-processes when the model becomes too large to understand or increases error probability.
• Start with a high-level model and add details iteratively.
• Use SESE (Single Entry Single Exit) fragments to model parallel repetition.

Rework and Repetition

• A multi-instance activity is useful when the same activity needs to be executed for multiple entities or data items.
• A block-structured repetition (Loop Activity) allows the repetition of a task or sub-process.
• An uncontrolled repetition (Ad-hoc sub-process) contains activities to be executed in arbitrary order and number of times.

Process Performance Measures

• Time, Cost, Quality, and Flexibility are common process performance measures.
• BPMN provides a comprehensive framework for modeling business processes from a 10,000-foot view.

BPMN Core Elements

• A BPMN process model consists of four core elements: Flow Objects (Events, Activities, Gateways), Connecting Objects (Sequence Flows), Swimlanes (Pools, Lanes), and Artifacts (Text Annotations, Data Objects).
• Core elements have subtypes, and each element has a specific purpose in the process model.

Test your knowledge on BPMN process performance measures and elements according to Mintzberg. Explore core notation elements and subtypes in BPMN process models, focusing on order-to-cash processes triggered by purchase orders.