Business Process Modelling Patterns

[Paolo F Cantoni]

There's been some discussion in the forum regarding patterns for Business Process Modelling.

One problem is that there are essential differences between Business Process activities and System related activities, particularly in the area of Workflow Modelling.

The following paper (passed on to me by a colleague) Pattern-based Analysis of UML Activity Diagrams has some very interesting analyses of the differences between UML and YAWL (Yet Another Workflow Language) a formalism for workflow specifications.

The paper discusses how certain standard workflow patterns are (or are not) supported in UML.  It also discusses Workflow Data Patterns which are described in more detail in the second paper.

I commend both papers to anyone interested in Business Process Modelling.

Regardz,
Paolo

[Kevin Brennan]

Another technique that may be of interest to readers of this forum is BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation).

The group managing BPMN has merged with the OMG and it seems likely that the next version of UML will include a number of enhancements to the Activity Diagram to make it a better tool for BPM.