I saw a link a couple days ago for a BPMN self-test, and thought I’d try it out.  The test, available to anyone, is “part of a research project by Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Technische Universiteit Eindhoven on the understanding of BPMN Process Models.”  It’s harmless I suppose, but – to my way of thinking, anyway – a bit off target, and in typical academic fashion.  It is composed of thirty-odd true-false questions each concerning the behavior described by a particular diagram.  I don’t exaggerate by saying the exercise is 50% a test of one’s knowledge of the difference between XOR and AND gateways and 50% a test of one’s ability to follow a maze of twisty-turny criss-crossing sequence flows interconnecting 50 or more nodes in a meaningless diagram. (Although my 4-year old granddaughter Maia is pretty good at mazes, these would be over her head, but I doubt she would find the BPMN semantics challenging.) 

I thought I would get them all right, but I missed two (tracing through the maze is not so easy).  That put me 99th out of 283 who had taken the test so far, which says a lot by itself.

Anyway, while the test seems totally misdirected as to what is important to know about BPMN, it is a quite clever marketing tool for BPMN training.  There are hints in that direction on the self-test site, although, as I say, I don’t think the test itself would motivate the kind of business process analysts and architects I encounter on this side of the Atlantic. 

So I decided to create my own BPMN self-test, more reflective of the understanding I think is important.  It’s only 10 multiple choice questions, each containing four diagrams, one of which is the correct answer.  I would not be embarrassed to call it marketing for my book and training, and it’s helping me get acquainted with the capabilities of the iLinc environment I am using for my virtual classroom offering. 

Here’s the link to my BPMN self-test.  Unlike the other one, you have to register for mine – basically name, company/title, and email.  It sticks to the core Level 1 and Level 2 palette, but it is reasonably challenging if you don’t know BPMN well. 

Try them both, and tell me what you think.