Product Description

Revised and updated with 5 new chapters, the second edition of A Pragmatic Guide to Business Process Modelling shows how effective and accurate modelling can be used to deliver a more complete understanding of your business and it's future requirements. Most organisations traditionally rely upon over-simplified activity diagrams that map input and output, but by applying the visual modelling techniques described here, it is possible to measure and map your entire business, using the Unified Modelling Language (UML). Drawing upon his considerable experience in consulting, author Jon Holt covers all aspects of the BPM process, including analysis, specification, mapping, measurement and documentation. New chapters deal with the presentation of process information, enterprise architecture, business tools and a teaching guide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #142806 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 246 pages

About the Author
Jon Holt is the founding director of Brass Bullet Ltd, a systems engineering consultancy and training company based in the UK. He is an award-winning author and public speaker, specialising in all aspects of systems, process and competency modelling. Jon's other work interests include Enterprise Architecture, standards and education, and he has previously held a variety of positions at universities in the UK and USA. Jon is a Fellow of the IET and BCS, and currently lives in Swansea, South Wales, with this wife and three children.

Customer Reviews

UML v. Other Notations - a Question of Purpose
I think the debate about using UML v. other notations or methods should be considered from the point of view of what is the purpose and objectives of your modelling. If you are developing process models for a process improvement type initiative, where diagrams need to be shared and reviewed by a large audience of non-technical business users, then UML, in my experience, is probably not the right approach.

UML is an excellent approach when it comes to systems / software engineering, system architecture design and requirements management; but not as a method for sharing and communicating business process models across the organisation.
A more easy to understand notation will be much more effective, and it seems that BPMN has now become a well established approach for this purpose. Additionally, I think that the fact that the OMG chose to develop the BPMN standard in addition to UML speaks for itself (as you may know, the Object Management Group - OMG, is responsible for the development of both standards). Therefore, in my opinion the approach offered in the book is more suitable for technical analysts not for people running a business focused process modelling initiative.

However, I do agree with the author's key point about the fact that in order to fully understand the process complexities there is a need to document more then just the process flow (conduct a 360 modelling, but which comes more under the domain of Enterprise Architecture not purely process modelling).

Furthermore, various process modelling tools today do offer the ability to easily capture many additional dimensions then just simple flow diagrams. I found the approach advocated by Ian Gotts in his book "Common Approach, Uncommon results" highly effective for getting organisations to document their processes and gain the benefits from doing so.

Don't be fooled by the title
I bought this while studying for the British Computer Society exam on process modelling - expecting a good practical book like many other BCS publications. Instead what the book provides is a somewhat esoteric / academic mediation on the nature of business process models, expressed (sometimes in a rather contrived way) through UML.

It might be interesting, I may come back to it - but it certainly wasn't going to help me though my exam so it went on the bookshelf. If you are looking for a practical hands on guide - as the title implies - look elsewhere.

To join in the mini-debate here of course you can use ULM for business process modeling. I have been doing so for 10 years, and no business users don't run a mile - they find use case and activity diagrams immensely useful and practical tools in expresing busines process.

I just don't think this is a particulalry helpful book on using UML with business people, try UML Xtra-Light by Milan Kratochvil and Barry McGibbon instead.

Author's response to previous review (I had to put in a star rating - sorry!)
First of all, thank you for buying the book.

I am sorry that you disagree about using UML for the modelling notation, but I would strongly disagree with your criticisms, and would like to offer a reasoned response to your points.
The main point of the book is promote the use of different views to model a process. First of all, the book clearly states that you can use any notation whatsoever to realise these views, and explicitly mentions several other notations, including BPMN. However, if you choose to use BPMN, for example, to attempt to realise these views, then you will only be able to realise two out of the seven. Without wanting to enter into a major debate about the differences between UML and BPMN, I would suggest that people look to a presentation recently given at the IET (formerly the IEE) seminar on `UML for process modelling', where Simon Perry provides an analysis and evaluation of the two approaches. However, a few salient points here - BPMN has no concept of a requirement for the process, cannot represent stakeholders explicitly, nor the relationships between artefacts, nor will it allow you to model concepts and terminology.

Also, the description of UML presented here by the reviewer as being `a suite of 15 or so diagramming notations used for object-oriented design and development of computer systems, and can't be applied to the domain of business process modelling' is incorrect. Sure, the UML has its roots in the software engineering community (and has 13 diagrams) but it has been used very widely on a number of different applications, including requirements engineering, process modelling, architectural frameworks, mental mapping, risk assessment, project management etc.

As a final point, the reviewer may think that my approach is `well meaning' but `flawed' but many people disagree with this, including the British Standards Institution (BSI). In fact, this approach is now being promoted by the BSI, supported by a series of training courses on how to use these techniques. A good quote form the BSI web site is: `The approach advocated and taught here is based on the world-leading UML modelling notation and is currently the only course that teaches process modelling as used and applied by the BSI.' Don't take my word for it, talk to the official UK standards body.

So there we have it, an approach that is clearly not to everyone's taste, but one that is recognised by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), published by the British Computer Society (BCS) and adopted by the British Standards Institution (BSI).

I hope that this clears up any misconceptions that may have arisen from this review.

Jon Holt