There has been much activity in the past two or three years in developing web service-based XML execution languages for Business Process Management (BPM) systems. Languages such as BPEL4WS provide a formal mechanism for the definition of business processes. The key element of such languages is that they are optimized for the operation and inter-operation of BPM Systems. The optimization of these languages for software operations renders them less suited for direct use by humans to design, manage, and monitor business processes. BPEL4WS has both graph and block structures and utilizes
the principles of formal mathematical models, such as pi-calculus1. This technical underpinning provides the foundation for business process execution to handle the complex nature of both internal and B2B interactions and take advantage of the benefits of Web services. Given the nature of BPEL4WS, a complex business process could be organized in a potentially complex, disjointed, and unintuitive format that is handled very well by a software system (or a computer programmer), but would be hard to understand by the business analysts and managers tasked to develop, manage, and monitor the process. Thus, there is a human level of "inter-operability" or "portability" that is not addressed by these web service-based XML execution languages.
Business people are very comfortable with visualizing business processes in a flow-chart format. There are thousands of business analysts studying the way companies work and defining business processes with simple flow charts. This creates a technical gap between the format of the initial design of business processes and the format of the languages, such as BPEL4WS, that will execute these business processes. This gap needs to be bridged with a formal mechanism that maps the appropriate visualization of the business processes (a notation) to the appropriate execution format (a BPM execution language) for these business processes.
Inter-operation of business processes at the human level, rather than the software engine level, can be solved with standardization of the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). BPMN provides a Business Process Diagram (BPD), which is a Diagram designed for use by t.ple who design and manage business processes. BPMN also provides a formal mapping to an execution language of BPM Systems (BPEL4WS). Thus, BPMN would provide a standard visualization mechanism for business processes defined in an execution optimized business process language.
BPMN will provide businesses with the capability of understanding their internal business procedures in a graphical notation and will give organizations the ability to communicate these procedures in a standard manner. Currently, there are scores of process modeling tools and methodologies. Given that individuals will move from one company to another and that companies will merge and diverge, it is likely that business analysts are required to understand multiple representations of business processes--potentially different representations of the same process as it moves through its lifecycle of development, implementation, execution, monitoring, and analysis. Therefore, a standard graphical notation will facilitate the understanding of the performance collaborations and business transactions within and between the organizations. This will ensure that businesses will understand themselves and participants in their business and will enable organizations to adjust to new internal and B2B business circumstances quickly. To do this, BPMN will follow the tradition of flowcharting notations for readability; yet still provide a mapping to the executable constructs. BPMI is using the experience of the business process notations that have preceded BPMN to create the next generation notation that combines readability, flexibility, and expandability.
BPMN will also advance the capabilities of traditional business process notations by inherently handling B2B business process concepts, such as public and private processes and choreographies, as well as advanced modeling concepts, such as exception handling, transactions, and compensation.