Business Process Modeling Notation:

In this section, the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN), developed
under the coordination of the Object Management Group, is introduced. The
focus of this section is not a complete presentation of the standard, but a
discussion of the main concepts of business process diagrams expressed in the
Business Process Modeling Notation.
The intent of the Business Process Modeling Notation in business process
modelling is very similar to the intent of the Unified Modeling Language for
object-oriented design and analysis. To identify the best practices of existing
approaches and to combine them into a new, generally accepted language.
The set of ancestors of BPMN include not only graph-based and Petri-netbased
process modelling languages, but also UML activity diagrams and eventdriven
process chains.
While these modelling languages focus on different levels of abstraction,
ranging from a business level to a more technical level, the Business Process
Modeling Notation aims at supporting the complete range of abstraction levels,
including business levels and software technology levels. This goal is also
laid out in the standards document, which states, �The primary goal of BPMN
is to provide a notation that is readily understandable by all business users,
from the business analysts that create the initial drafts of the processes, to
the technical developers responsible for implementing the technology that will
perform those processes, and finally, to the business people who will manage
and monitor those processes.�