Workflow

International association responsible for publishing the BPM CBOK, the main reference guide for the business process management discipline.

Study of a process to identify bottlenecks, redundancies, and opportunities for improvement. Central stage of the BPM lifecycle, executed after mapping the current state.

Hierarchical structure that organizes an organization's processes into levels (macroprocesses, processes, subprocesses), creating a view of how processes relate to each other.

Automated execution strategy for tasks in a closed cycle of modeling, execution, and measurement; it is the operational layer of what BPM defines.

Continuous and strategic approach to define, execute, monitor, and optimize an organization's processes end-to-end, combining people, technology, and methods.

International graphical standard maintained by the OMG for representing processes with standardized symbols. The current version is BPMN 2.0.

Software that allows modeling, executing, automating, monitoring, and optimizing business processes. It is the technological layer that enables BPM practice in organizations.

Business Process Management Common Body of Knowledge. Guide published by the ABPMP that consolidates the essential body of knowledge for the professional practice of BPM.

Statement that defines or constrains an aspect of the process, such as approval conditions or deadlines. Guides automated decisions within the execution flow.

Phases that make up continuous process management: planning, analysis, modeling, implementation, monitoring, and refinement. Represents the iterative nature of the discipline.

Mechanisms that ensure process execution as modeled, within expected parameters. Includes alerts, escalations, and monitoring dashboards.

Stage of the BPM lifecycle where the future process is designed based on opportunities identified in the As-Is analysis, defining how it should work in an optimized way.

OMG standard for business decision modeling. Compliments BPMN by visually representing decision rules (such as decision tables) that govern process behavior.

Ability of a process or BPMS platform to grow in volume without loss of performance. Scalable processes are standardized and replicable.

An occurrence that affects the flow of a process. Can be start, intermediate, or end events, represented by circles in BPMN.

Logical sequence of activities, decisions, and events that make up a process. In BPMN, the Sequence Flow indicates the execution order of activities.

Set of sequential steps that define who does what, when, and in what order. It is the operational representation of a process modeled in BPM.

Digital interface for data collection and user interaction with a running process instance. Configured in the BPMS for each human activity of the process.

Element that represents decision, merging, or branching points in the flow. Controls how the process splits (parallel or exclusive) or converges. Represented by diamonds in BPMN.

Transfer of an activity or responsibility between participants in a process. Poorly managed handoffs are a frequent source of delays and loss of information.

Individual execution of a process. Each instance has its own history, data, and status—created every time a process is started.