Details of my BPMN Master Class on June 2 and 9 have now been finalized.  If you know BPMN Method and Style and you want to take the next step, this class is for you!

The class is split into two 5-hour sessions one week apart, so students will have time to complete problem sets assigned at the end of the first session and mail them in before the second session, when selected solutions will be presented.  Here is the outline of the class:

Day 1

  1. Overview and Objectives
  2. Method and Style Review
    • Instance alignment
    • Hierarchical modeling and gateway end state test
    • Avoiding deadlocks, multimerge, and unsafe models
    • Big 3 event types – Message, Timer, Error
    • Loop vs MI activity
  3. Batching and Multi-Pool Models
  4. Signal, Conditional, Escalation Events
  5. Event Subprocesses
  6. Problem Set Assignment

Day 2

  1. Problem Set Presentations and Discussion
  2. Enterprise Process Map
  3. Case Management and Declarative BPMN
    • CMMN vs BPMN
    • Ad hoc activities in BPMN
    • Event-condition-action pattern
    • Declarative BPMN
  4. Your Scenarios and Patterns
  5. Master Class Certification Exercise

The Master Class is open to students who are already Method and Style certified, but it begins with a quick review of some of its more technical concepts: alignment of the activity and process instance; using gateways to test child-level end state, merging parallel and conditionally parallel flows; basic patterns for Message, Timer, and Error events; and the difference between Loop and Multi-Instance activities.  We then go into mostly new material, beginning with how to deal with batching in end-to-end business processes, using multiple BPMN processes coordinated via messages and shared data.  We’ll spend some time on the “lesser” Level 2 event types – Signal, Conditional, and Escalation – why each is a little strange, and the most important use cases for each one.  We finish Day 1 with event subprocesses, which will prove extremely valuable when we get to case management and “declarative BPMN” on Day 2.

At the end of the session, four homework exercises will be assigned based on the Day 1 material. Students will mail in their solutions prior to Day 2, at which time selected solutions will be presented to the class and discussed.  Students are also invited to send in their own questions and scenarios, which we will discuss on Day 2 as well.  That thorny problem you have been struggling with in your own process models?  Send it in, and we’ll discuss various ways to model it on Day 2. In addition, on Day 2 we will discuss how BPMN models relate to enterprise BPM architecture models, a topic rarely given adequate treatment.  We’ll also explore how BPMN can do what it’s not supposed to be able to do: case management.  We’ll look at how escalation event subprocesses, parallel-multiple events, and other BPMN 2.0 constructs can be used to describe ad hoc behavior and “declarative” process models.

At the end of Day 2, we explain the certification exercise.  As in the BPMN Method and Style class, students have 60 days to complete the certification.  I’ll be using itp commerce Process Modeler for Visio in my slides, but students have the option of using Signavio instead.  Sixty-day use of either tool is provided as part of the training.

Sound interesting?  The class runs June 2 and 9, live-online, from 11am to 4pm ET each day (that’s 5pm to 10pm CET in Europe).  We will use internet audio, and students are encouraged to use a headset and microphone to facilitate 2-way voice discussion.  Click here to register by credit card, or contact me by email to sign up by PO.