Organizational structure in BPMN

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Andre's picture

Posted: 2012-07-16
1297 views | 7 comments | category: BPMN

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Hello,

Just a little help, please: In my company the standard notation to map all kind of processes is BPMN 2.0...doesn't matter whether it will be an automated process or not. Cool...or not...

...cauz if I would like to map our Organizational structure, won't be possible to associate the "Organizational unit" object to an "Lane" or "Pool" object in a BPMN model.

Question: How do I do to make this association in these cases?

What's the "right way" to do it?

Thanks,

Andre Sales

Comments
Tarun's picture

Hi,

In a BPMN diagram, the lanes denote the person or the department/org unit carrying out the specific activity. So you could rename the lanes in accordance to the org unit you are intending to. Or if the situation permits or calls for as such where you have a pool as an org unit and the lanes as your departments/people who work fot the org unit, you can rename them to your choice.

Compared to an EPC, you don't have an option to represent a specific box as an org unit in a BPMN model.

But the right bet to represent an entire ORG structure would obviously be the ORG Structure model.

Thanks,

Tarun R.

Andre's picture

Hi Tarun, thanks for your quickly answer!

Yes, this cenario that you figured out is absolutely true when you are talking about process automations. Cauz in cases like that, you gonna (don't know if it's mandatory) use the Active Directory (Microsoft AD or another similar) as your Organizational Structure. I'm assuming that this cenario is just for automation (around 5% or 10% of your business processes, right?).

So, here we are using the BPMN as our standard notation, and not just for automation. It means that I must build my Organizational Structure all fitted to BPMN models and org. structure objects doesn't works in BPMN models. Got it? So, what about the lane's repository? What kind of object will I use to build my Org. Structure? (considering that you can't make direct assignments for BPMN models).

Does anybody have some suggestions/tips?

 

Thaks,

Andre Sales

Ivo's picture

Andre,

You can map pools to some (not all, unfortunately) org. units in BPMN2 allocation diagram. However, if you want to map a pool to Organisational unit type or to Application System Type, BPMN2 allocation diagram won't help. There are however some possibilities for this kind of mapping in BPMN1. This means that the desired connection types are available and you can allow them in you filter for the Matrix Model type.

Andre's picture

Ivo,

please, do you have some functional example about this?

It's not working here...

 

Thanks,

Andre Sales

Ivo's picture
Andre,
 
I've made a quick example
 
Mapping BPMN Pools and Lanes to Org. units, IT systems and processes
 
Let me know if that's what you are looking for.
 
 
Andre's picture

Ok, Ivo!

Actually I've already tried it, but I think it's not the best way to show this for the managers.

What I'm looking for is some way to make this vision looks like in the VAC diagrams, but I think it's not possible in these cases.

Thanks,

Andre

Roland's picture

You can't because the BPMN specification does not specifty this. To quote from the spec (chapter 7.1):

"BPMN is constrained to support only the concepts of modeling that are applicable to Business Processes. This means that other types of modeling done by organizations for business purposes is out of scope for BPMN. Therefore, the following are aspects that are out of the scope of this specification:

• Definition of organizational models and resources
• Modeling of functional breakdowns
• Data and information models
• Modeling of strategy
• Business rules models"
 
This means you have to do more than BPMN models to show what you want to show. Ivo's idea is one workaround, the other one (which I would recommend) is to use VACDs as higher level process models and restrict BPMN to only one or two lower levels. This helps you overcoming the "modeling of functional breakdown" restriction which basically means "no hierarchy".
 
But that is another internal sale that you will have to do :-)