2-1.Drawing a BPMN diagram Within One Minute!
The Four Fundamentals of BPMN are:
Fundamentals?- Draw Oblong Rectangles and label them with company departments (swimlanes)
- Line up Round-Cornered Rectangles (tasks)
- Connect them with Arrows (sequence flow)
- Connect the start to a Single Narrow Circle, and the end to a Single Bold Circle (start/end events)
These are the basics. No need to memorize any terminology.
here are other marks (markers) and troublesome Diamond Shapes, but let's forget them for now.
<Figure 1>
Maybe we don't even have to explain the above figure, but just in case:、
- A press release staff creates a draft,
- The leader of the press release team reviews it,
- The Legal Department judges it,
- A Board executive approves it, and
- The initial press release staff releases it.
Really…?It ends perfectly, with a completed cycle. It's a simple one-way path of no options and no return, but it was drawn within a minute!
2-2.Learn to draw a point with two or more options, and you're one step closer to mastering it.
If you want to make it possible to go back a step, you have to create a crossroad (split), where you either go forward or go back.
When you draw a lot of internal business processes, at some point you come to realize that most crossroads are simple, usually a single choice out of two options. Complicated crossroads are rare. The most common one is "OK or NG."
The Two Fundamentals of splits are:
More fundamentals?- Give the regular flow a slash, and (default flow)
- Give the optional flow a small diamond (conditional flow)
<Figure 2>
A small diamond indicates the existence of a condition. You don't have to clarify these conditions in the diagram.
The slash indicates the way a process should proceed in case none of the conditions are met.
If you feel like it, you can add comments on the different flows,
which makes it easier for others to understand.
With these Fundamentals (Four + Two)…
You can draw more than 90% of your company's business processes.
Please, try it out.
By the way, if there are only two choices, you can exchange the slash and small diamond without changing the definition of the business process.
