Essential Process Modeling

Abstract

Business process models are important at various stages of the BPM lifecycle. Before starting to model a process, it is crucial to understand why we are modeling it. The models we produce will look quite differently depending on the reason for modeling them in the first place. There are many reasons for modeling a process. The first one is simply to understand the process and to share our understanding of the process with the people who are involved with the process on a daily basis. Indeed, process participants typically perform quite specialized activities in a process such that they are hardly confronted with the complexity of the whole process. Therefore, process modeling helps to better understand the process and to identify and prevent issues. This step towards a thorough understanding is the prerequisite to conduct process analysis, redesign or automation.