When needing to model processes, which method is best suited to your particular analysis assignment? If you only know one method, the decision is made for you but if you have a handful of choices, how do you decide which to use? Much depends upon who you’ll be working with to capture the processes, what your target outputs are to be and who the recipients of the final output will be. Options may include a ULM activity diagram, a swim-lane block and diamond diagram, a BPMN swim-lane diagram or an OPAL diagram.

To get an initial view of a current process or to model a new prototype process I prefer to use the OPAL method (or Event-Based Process Chains). These provide a view of the activities involved and the resources used (people doing the work and the systems or services and business rules), and less upon the complex decision logic that may be involved. The latter is probably best reserved for a UML type activity diagram to be presented alongside the OPAL model to aid understanding. I’ll discuss the others listed in subsequent posts. Mike H.