BPMN 101: Why Your Diagrams Are Confusing and How to Fix Them

Circles, diamonds, dashed arrows: what does a BPMN diagram actually mean? In this video I explain BPMN on one complete diagram: the 5 building blocks (events, activities, gateways, flows, pools and lanes), how to read any BPMN diagram in 6 steps, and one full order process from a made-up online shop, start to finish, including the gap we find and then fix live in bpmn.io. Plus the 5 BPMN mistakes to avoid. 0:00 "Circles, diamonds, arrows?": the problem 0:14 BPMN is a language, not a tool 0:52 Explain like I'm 5: road signs 1:19 What's in the BPMN spec 1:50 Before you read: three questions 2:23 Block 1: events (circles) 2:57 Block 2: activities (round boxes) 3:32 Block 3: gateways (diamonds) 4:06 Block 4: flows (the lines) 4:44 Block 5: pools and lanes 5:20 Read it in 6 steps: the cast and the start 5:52 Step 3: follow the token 6:24 Step 4: stop at every gateway 6:55 Step 5: check every message 7:24 Step 6: find every end 7:58 Worked example: the whole order process 8:34 Fix the gap: build it in bpmn.io 9:23 Walk it through, then the tools 10:02 5 common mistakes 10:36 Recap Want to draw this in a real tool? My step-by-step BPMN tutorials in bpmn.io, draw.io and Visio are in the playlists on the channel. Note: the Online Shop, its people, numbers and prices are a made-up example (the same company as in my tool tutorials). The voice and the presenter are AI-generated (my cloned voice and avatar). Sources: Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) Version 2.0.2 (Object Management Group, 2014): the five basic categories of elements (flow objects, data, connecting objects, swimlanes, artifacts); events (start, intermediate, end; message and timer); activities (task, sub-process); gateways (exclusive, parallel, inclusive, event-based); sequence flow, message flow and association; pools and lanes; the token concept used to describe process behaviour. BABOK® Guide v3 (IIBA, 2015), 10.35 Process Modelling: process models as a technique, with BPMN as one of the notations. #BusinessAnalysis #BPMN #BusinessAnalyst