What are the Benefits of Process Modeling?
In contrast to an organization’s tangible assets, business processes are intangible, and this characteristic makes them more difficult to recognize and observe. Still, they remain an essential element of business management and optimization, so how can they be properly assessed and improved?
In order to ‘work’ with processes, we have to transform intangible processes into clarified process models. This type of activity is called ‘business process modeling’.
A process model is a representation of a real-world process. In fact, visual process models are commonly defined as ‘process diagrams’. Process models can also be non-visual, as they would if, for example, they were specifying process execution semantics.
Process diagrams can form a good basis for business process management activities, since they enable process representation, observation, and analysis.
Based on the results of analysis, existing processes can be changed. The applied changes can also be simulated or observed to see if they lead to any improvements.
If these updated activities perform well continuously, with positive impacts on the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization, it can result in permanent changes. This cycle of process improvement activities is commonly known as the ‘PDCA (Plan–Do–Check–Adjust)’, an iterative four-step management method used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products.
Since process diagrams represent essential business process management activities, it is important that they reflect actual processes as precisely as possible. Several notations for modeling business processes exist, and the best choice is ‘Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)’.