Jim Sinur

A member of the Gartner Blog Network

Jim Sinur
Research VP
2 years at Gartner
42 years IT industry

Jim Sinur is a vice president in Gartner Research after a short stint with a BPM vendor. Prior to that, Mr. Sinur was with Gartner 15 years and helped establish the BPI/BPM areas at Gartner and is considered a thought leader. His research and areas… Read Full Bio

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Process Modeling: Doing by Design

by Jim Sinur  |  April 26, 2010  |  8 Comments

There is a continuum of approaches for process modeling, all of which, I have seen work at different organizations. For processes that are mainly structured or for organizations that aren’t sure, a process modeling approach to process discovery makes sense, but there are options to consider. I’ll start simple and work to more complex approaches.

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Manual Modeling:

This is where a group of folks gather around butcher paper, white boards, or walls covered with yellow sticky papers. This kind of process discovery is great for pulling out different views of what is happening in the process focus area.

Light Weight Modeling Tools

Gartner Analyst, Bill Rosser calls this “process modeling for the masses” where a simple process modeling tool is used to collaborate on a design. These tools can be readily available like Visio, any number of process modeling tools in the cloud and/or easy to use modeling tools. They can be simple strategy focused capabilities, simple architecture focused tools, rule driven process model generators (rare) and/or simplistic modeling tools. These tools sometimes lack context, but get you going.

Heavy Weight Modeling Tools:

These capabilities are heavy with feature and require experts to decide how to use them. The benefit of these kinds of technologies is that they help link to context. These include enterprise architecture tools, deep process/data modeling tools and model driven execution tools. If organizations wish to get very detailed and/or link to an overall context these technologies make sense, but they require heavy care and feeding.

Do it, Try it, Fix it with Execution Tools

Organizations that like to prototype can use a traditional BPMS and iterate to a usable and executable model. This approach is gaining in popularity for those who have to see results quickly.

All of these approaches can be leveraged today as models can be moved fairly easily wit XPDL and eventually advanced BPMN (leveraging XPDL). What you chose might depend on your culture, your size and how much budget you have to spend. Doing by design does work for the more static parts of end to end processes. .

What do you use?

Design by doiing is my next topic http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/04/22/bpm-is-shifting-into-high-gear/

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Category: BPM Business Process Improvement Optimization Simulation     Tags: , ,

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