Customer Reviews

BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I, and Computas in Norway, have been involved with BPMN since the early days in 2003 / 2004 leading to the release of BPMN 1.0 from BPMI. For years, there was no book about BPMN, except for the specification itself. Over the last year, BPMN books have started to appear - and among them is the authoritative guide to BPMN; "BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide" by Stephen A. White - who has been the editor of the standard over the years - and Derek Miers - one of the few European BPM Gurus.

The most amazing thing about this book is its (lack of) thickness - the authors have accomplished to write this authoritative guide in only 221 pages. The introductory part - "Understanding BPMN" is only 46 easily read pages; with lots of nice examples covering BPMN 1.1 modeling style using signal events etc.

If you are interested in a condensed BPMN overview for both business and IT people - this is the book for you.

If you are looking for the best BPMN book around - this is also the book for you.

If you are interested in reading several hundreds of pages about BPMN - I would start with this book, next complement it with the specification itself; available from OMG's website.

This is a very readable book that is, as the title indicates, a reference guide. It is an easy, yet excellent, introduction to BPMN. Nevertheless, as a reference guide, be advised that it does not contain anything on methodology.

WARNING *** Do NOT buy the Kindle version of this book. I did this today, because I needed to read the book for a work task. It probably is a great book, but the Kindle version is WORTHLESS at best. A book about graphical notation without the graphical figures is really worthless and it costs MORE than the paper edition. How about explaining that one folks. The publisher should be ashamed to even offer the book much less charge a premium for it. DO NOT BUY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Thankfully Amazon will refund your money if you do make the mistake.

Acc. to authors BPMN 2.0 is intended to be published in 2009 (sunny day scenario) or 2010 (as-is scenario). Until that time we are to work with BPMN 1.1, which, in my view, authors just paraphrased in their book. Someone who works as a BPM professional should not be surprised not to discover anything new in the book. This, however, does not necessarily mean the book is useless. It is useful and handy and reads much better than above mentioned 1.1 document.

What striked the eye is a lack of practical examples of BPMN diagrams. You can see only simplistic forms presenting an aspect of the notation, especially that of 1.1 version (you'll find many BPMN Signal Events in the book). Even the boring OMG specification contains a full example of BPMN process - the book does not.

The book will surely teach you BPMN semantics in much better way than the original specification does. At the same time you won't learn how a correct BPMN diagram is to be created from A to Z.

I do hope Messrs White and Miers will not agree with what Oscar Wilde once said: Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

My recommendation for a reader: BUY THE BOOK, EXPECT NO FIREWORKS, TRAIN A LOT.

Well, kudos to you guys, because you have created a much needed reference for our industry!
Your book is well written, easy to read and present the BPMN concepts in an easy to understand way
that is accessible to the laymen while allowing experts to better understand some on the sometime
not so clear intentions that are in the spec.

I believe your chapter 5 will become the reference for introducing BPMN to the masses.

Again thanks for producing what I perceive to be a great book! Kudos!

Nothing more than the official OMG specification - but organized and written in a more comprehensible way. Some examples are different from the official specification - some are not.
It could have been much better, since the level of expertise of the authors, anyhow it is an useful introduction to the subject.

Excellent ouvrage. Rarement lu un guide de référence aussi bien charpenté. Complet, facile à lire, exemples bien choisis, illustrations adéquates. J'ai obtenu toutes les réponses aux questions que je me posais.
A recommander.

This text reads like a novel. One example is used in Part I of the learning approach. It starts with a high-level diagram and proceeds with follow-up detail diagrams - to use a cliche - it's like peeling an onion. At each level, new concepts and associated symbols are introduced with page references to indepth discussions later in the text.

I really like this learning approach and found the text easy to read and understand. Highly recommended.

As being one of the BPMN gurus, Stephen White, wrote in fact, a good book about the theme. The book is objective, and has a good explanation level.

Personnaly, I recommend it, for the rookie or intermediary levels.

This book explains the BPMN using simple language. However, for business analysts and information analysts this book does not contain anything new. Even more, the BPMN as such has the same level of complexity as UML activity diagrams. Why bother with BPMN in the first place? The book does not provide the answer to this question nither.

The added value of BPMN is not justified even with this book. It's generaly accepted belief that management does not want to be bothered with BPMN, UML or any alike kind of syntax - even if you put word "Business" in it. So this book will not help you understand what are the advantages of BPMN?

I'm awaiting a good book which will justify the user of BPMN and clearly state the benefits and advantages of BPMN above UML and other existing modeling languages. Till then, I'll keep using the proven modeling languages and techniques.

May I get my money back for this book?