E-Learning Material Business Processes

What’s a business process? Activities and Actions UML notation Decisions Objects and roles Examples

What’s a business process? Defines how a business achieves its purpose Strategic processes develop vision and mission Operational processes achieve specific goals and objectives If we are to make a profit, it should add value Comprises activities and actions

Activities and Actions Activity Carried out by an object – ongoing Might be complex and contain other activities Action Specific thing that changes an object and produces a result Like an activity, but can’t be broken down any further

UML Notation ActivityAction Exactly the same!

Example Complete form Complete first name Complete surname Complete address Complete order details Activity Action

Decisions Called branch Up to three options Just like a flowchart! input options

Putting them together Take order Get from stock Calculate subtotal Courier Post [express delivery] [standard] Guard condition included between square brackets Arrows indicate dependency and flow – next activity is dependent on previous activity

Forks and joins Activity Synchronisation bar Concurrent activities Activity cannot occur before completion of prior activities

Objects and roles UML allows us to partition activities by object or by role Object partitioning is used when designing software Role partitioning is the general convention for business modelling Especially useful for representing departments

Swimlanes Activity ProductionDistributionAccounts Time

Bit more notation… Start of process End of process

Coupled process Activity Department 1 Department 2

Example processes Delivering a product to a customer Checking the credit history of a supplier Balancing the accounts Verifying manufacturing capacity Stock checks Engineering design change Updating the website

Recap What’s a business process? Activities and Actions UML notation Decisions Objects and roles Examples

And now… Try modelling a simple process Making a cup of tea Buying a pint of beer Choosing somewhere to live The more you do, the easier it will get!