Advantages and disadvantages of BPMN?

uml modeling bpmn
Gerard picture Gerard · Sep 23, 2010 · Viewed 18.6k times · Source

I was hoping you could tell me what the advantages and disadvantages of BPMN are in a developers perspective.

I'm comparing UML with BPMN and a found a bunch of advantages and disadvanteges for UML but none for BPMN.

Answer

sfinnie picture sfinnie · Sep 23, 2010

It's largely down to audience and purpose. In terms of modelling language, BPMN and UML activity diagrams cover pretty much the same conceptual space with different notations. The notation thing gets religious very quickly. I personally prefer AD notation over BPMN - but it's a very personal thing.

Broadly speaking, BPMN tends to find favour with those coming from a business process modelling / business analysis background. UML ADs tend to be favoured by those coming from a software perspective. Tool support tends to mirror this: the high end process modelling tools (casewise, aris, etc.) are more likely to support BPMN; software modelling tools (MagicDraw, Sparx, etc.) favour UML. However there's increasing crossover there. I've used both with business stakeholders with no issues in either case.

Finally is purpose. Are your diagrams going to be for human consumption only or used as a specification for some form of analysis/code generation? If it's not just pictures then your tool chain may well be the deciding factor.

If you want a more detailed description of the differences, have a look at the answer in this forum post.

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