Requirements Modelling and Specification for Service Oriented Architecture

Chapter 4. Business Process Modelling

I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do, till you require.

William Shakespeare (Sonnet LVII)

Once the mission of a business area and its measurable business objectives have been established and the latter prioritized, the next step in requirements engineering for service oriented architecture is to understand the key business processes that the area is responsible for. We do this by modelling them as we continue to probe the knowledge of our users and domain experts. Having modelled existing processes we can move on to designing alternative and, it is to be hoped, better processes.

After some preliminary justifications and a little history, this chapter introduces some popular and powerful notations for business process modelling (BPM). We restrict the discussion in this chapter to what I call network process models, which are the conventional ones used by the business process management movement. In Chapter 5, I present a more innovative but very practical approach to BPM that can be used with or instead of the methods of this chapter but is particularly useful when one wishes to explore the collaborative, human aspects of business processes.