Product Description
Creating business process models that can be shared effectively across the business – and between business and IT – demands more than a digest of BPMN shapes and symbols. It requires a step-by-step methodology for going from a blank page to a complete process diagram. It also requires consistent application of a modeling style, so that the modeler’s meaning is clear from the diagram itself. Author Bruce Silver explains not only the meaning and proper usage of the entire BPMN 2.0 palette, but calls out the working subset that you really need to know. He also reveals the hidden assumptions of core concepts left unexplained in the spec, the key to BPMN’s deeper meaning.
The book addresses BPMN at three levels, with primary focus on the first two. Level 1, or descriptive BPMN, uses a basic working set of shapes and symbols to meet the needs of business users doing process mapping. Level 2, or analytical BPMN, is aimed at business analysts and architects. It takes advantage of BPMN’s expressiveness for detailing event and exception handling, key to analyzing and improving process performance and quality. Level 3, or executable BPMN, is brand new in BPMN 2.0. Here the XML underneath the diagram shapes becomes an executable design can be deployed to a process engine to automate the process. The method and style detailed in the book aligns these three levels, facilitating business-IT collaboration throughout the process lifecycle.
Inside the book you’ll find discussions, illustrated with over 100 examples, about:
The questions BPMN asks, and does not ask The meaning of basic concepts like starting and completing, sending and receiving, waiting and listening Subprocesses and hierarchical modeling style The five basic steps in creating Level 1 models Event and exception-handling patterns Branching and merging patterns Level 2 modeling method Elements of BPMN style: element usage and diagram composition
I bought this book specifically because it says “using BPMN 2.0″, and I would not have bought it otherwise. But this claim is not true. How do I know this? Because right now (August 2009) BPMN 2.0 hasn’t been released – I’ve checked. The book must therefore be using some sort of “pre-release” version of BPMN 2.0. Rather than make a misleading claim the author and publisher should state the true state of affairs clearly on the cover. So now I feel really ripped off! Because of that, I’m only giving this book one star. Honesty is the best policy… Authors and publishers should NEVER mislead their customers in this way.
Rating: 1 / 5
This is my second review on that book. The first one was too vague; not only in my opinion.
This book does add value to a boring BPMN OMG SPECIFICATION. Reasons for that being as follows:
-plenty of both basic and advanced diagrams,
-clear style,
-no marketing hype,
-presented process modeling methodology,
-perfectly explained gateways and events (!!!)
-practical examples of HOW-TO, of HOW-NOT-TO and of WHY-NOT-TO-EVEN-IF-CORRECT.
After reading the book, constructs such as ‘exception handling’ or ‘transaction sub-process’ are going to be understood even by an idiot.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book provides a clear and simple guide to apply BPMN 2.0 in your everyday processes. Specification documents are not ment to be used as end-user guides, and Bruce took the job of explaining how to apply the modeling principles and guides of Business Process Modeling using BPMN 2.0 as the formal representation.
Being myself one of the BPMN 2.0 authors, I find this book an excelent way of understanding the standard and using it in the most appropriate way.
Rating: 5 / 5
Really good book. The author highlight essencial and deep BPMN insights. In addition the used methodology is clear and comprehensible.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is an important piece of work. The advance of BPMN as a modeling standard has reached critical mass, and Bruce’s book helps us prepare for the demand for these skills like nothing else in print.
His principle contention that effective modeling skills are matters of method and style, cannot be overestimated. The OMG standard does not provide guidance for addressing the differing audiences that surface from stakeholder analysis. Method & Style introduces three levels of modeling precision to segment the effort to match the audience, and guides modelers and analysts progressively into the complexity of the notation.
Bruce adds value by coaching readers in effective methods. They can expect to learn repeatable best practices, and an overall approach that virtually guarantees effective communication.
Buy the book, embrace the methods, enjoy the success.
Rating: 5 / 5