I had good luck with my previous BPMN "request for information" posting, so here is another one. Is it valid to end a top-level process in BPMN with an error end event? In my training I say that it is not, but it is a gray area. An error end event in a subprocess throws a signal that is caught by an error intermediate event attached to the boundary of that subprocess, i.
I will be chairing an all new BPMS Track at BPMInstitute.org's upcoming BPM Conference in New York City at The Roosevelt Hotel (November 5-6). This track analyzes the latest generation of BPM Suites, and features an extended panel on November 5 in which leading vendors show how their offerings address key topics such as business-IT alignment, agility and time to value, end user experience, and optimizing business performance. We did this in San Francisco and it worked very well.
I rarely disagree with Ismael, but I think his latest piece, in which he argues that a BPMS is the "right" way to build a Complex Event Processing (CEP) platform, is a little off base. All first-tier BPMS platforms today, not just those based on BPEL, can listen for events to instantiate a process, resume a waiting process, or interrupt a running activity. I don't think that has anything to do with CEP, which is about correlating events from multiple streams and applying rules to detect patterns of interest, e.
In addition to my 2-day class on Process Modeling with BPMN, I will be chairing an all new BPMS Track at BPMInstitute.org's upcoming BPM Conference in San Francisco (September 30-October 1). This new track is dedicated to matching BPM technology to your specific requirements and features, and features in-depth comparison of BPM Suite offerings. As a benefit of my participation, I have secured a limited number of Guest Passes* for BPMS Watch readers to attend on September 30, as well as a discounted rate of only $895* to attend both days (Sept 30-Oct 1) of the BPM Conference.
The team of IBM, SAP, and Oracle (augmented with a long list of new co-sponsors) submitted a revised version of their BPMN 2.0 proposal last week, and it is beginning to look almost real. I am going through the document and this post is the first of what I expect to be several on the topic. The revised BPMN 2.0 submission is a significant improvement over BPMN 1.x and offers hope of eventual rapprochement with the BPDM proposal.
Last fall I published my wish list for a few additions to BPMN. Typically these came from my BPMN training where a student would ask, How would you do this in BPMN?... and the spec provided no good answer. One of them, alternative entry points to a process, was explicitly addressed in the BPMN 1.1 spec in January 2008 using event gateway. For another one, the non-aborting "attached" event, I proposed a workaround valid in BPMN 1.
Did you know Adobe had a BPMS? Most people don't, even though with over 5000 customers they could be considered a major player. One reason people don't know about Adobe and BPM is that the company doesn't talk about it in the usual way. In fact, it treats the normal catalog of BPMS features and functions, like workflow and integration adapters, as commodities. For example, Adobe includes process modeling and a workflow engine inside every copy of LiveCycle Enterprise Suite, although to get full human task support you need to get the Process Management ES component as well.
Next week I'm stirring the pot again on one of my favorite topics - BPMN and Business-Empowered Implementation. Not once but twice. On June 17 I'll be moderating a panel at the Intalio User Conference in San Francisco. I'm hoping for users who have been-there-done-that with Intalio's BPMN modeler. What is the business-IT interaction really like? What skills are required? What are the hard parts? The parts that went better than expected?
You're probably saying, what the heck is OCEB? It stands for OMG Certified Expert in BPM, a series of credentials issued by OMG to demonstrate levels of BPM competence based on exams. There are 5 levels - a fundamental level, business intermediate and advanced, and technical intermediate and advanced. It's not just about BPMN, but pretty wide-ranging across BPM as both a management discipline and a technology. Maybe too wide ranging for my tastes.
On April 9 I'll be speaking at Impact, IBM's annual WebSphere mega-event in Las Vegas, on the topic of "Leveraging Enterprise Content in BPM and SOA". I was quite surprised they invited me, as I have been critical of their previous positioning of FileNet vs WebSphere in the BPMS space ("content-centric" vs "process-centric"? are you kidding?) But given the new SOA spin on enterprise content (both FileNet and DB2 CM), sounds like IBM may be loosening up.