Modeling business procces, which techniques are there?

Question

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question but here goes.

I'm currently looking into some different techniques to model a business proces. I need to find a suitable option for my company which develops all kind of web applications.

What i have found so far:
UML, specificly the activity diagrams
Flow charts
Windows workflow foundation
Business process modeling

I had a dive into the world of workflows but it's mainly about automating a process of a company and thats not what I'm looking for. My focus is on software and the process within.

If anyone else knows some other technique or can tell me the advantages or disadvanteges of the techniques I allready found that would be much appreciated because I'm a little stuck right now.

Answer 1

I think you are asking about transforming your business requirements/rules into technical requirements and then into a design? After that you will implement this design into code. Am not sure if this is what you are asking about..

Answer 2

Right now BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) and UML activity diagrams are the two most popular options for that.

I think of BPMN as the right choice when you are modeling the business aspects of the organization and move to Activity Diagrams as soon as you drill down to the technical design of the software system (as a core component of the UML language, activity diagrams are a better fit when having to combine workflow information with other views of the system, expressed also as UML diagrams like class diagrams or sequence diagrams).

Note that now a UML profile for BPMN is being created which means that you will be able to mix BPMN and UML diagrams in the same project

Answer 3

I suggest you consider ISO/IEC 24744. It will give you a very different perspective, since it does not use the ubiquitous "organisation as machine" metaphor, going for a more opportunistic, people-oriented viewpoint.

In other words, ISO/IEC 24744 does not represent a business process as a workflow where the process to follow is the driver. Instead, a business process is represented through the work products that are involved and the people that act upon them. The process performed plays an important but secondary role.

If you are interested in why this is so, or what the advantages are, let me know and I'll be happy to elaborate.