# BPMN Focus on Connected Businesses

**In short:** BPMN can model processes that cross company borders. Each organization gets its own pool, and message flows show the messages passing between them. Business and technical people can both read the result.

## Explanation

BPMN is a flowchart-like notation. Stakeholders can use it directly, and it does not depend on any implementation environment. That makes it a shared language for business and IT people (see BPMN Motivation).

**Pools for each organization.** A pool stands for a main participant in a process. Pools typically separate different organizations (see BPMN Swimlane (Pool and Lane)).

**Message flows between pools.** A message flow shows which messages cross an organizational boundary. It connects one pool to another. Each message has a single sender and a single recipient.

**Message events.** A message event makes a process instance wait until the right message arrives from another process. This is how one partner's process pauses until another partner responds.

**Process types.** BPMN distinguishes two kinds of process:

- *Private processes* are internal to one organization.
- *Public (abstract) processes* show the interactions between a private process and another process or participant.

A diagram that shows several pools and the message flows between them is a collaboration (see BPMN Collaboration Diagram).

## Example

A customer orders from a webshop. The webshop asks a payment provider to charge the customer. It then asks a delivery service to ship the goods. Each of the four parties is a pool. Message flows carry the order, the payment request, the payment confirmation and the shipping request between the pools. The webshop's process waits at a message event until the payment confirmation arrives. Each party's own private process stays internal to that organization.

## Trade-offs

Showing only the messages between pools keeps the diagram focused on the organizational boundary. The cost is that every message needs exactly one sender and one recipient. A notice meant for several partners must be drawn as separate messages.

BPMN diagram: [A customer and a webshop exchange messages across pool boundaries.](https://arc.fuet.ch/diagrams/concepts/modeling-bpmn/bpmn-focus-on-connected-businesses/diagram-1.bpmn)

## Checks

- Each participating organization in a cross-company process appears as its own pool.
- Messages that cross organizational boundaries are drawn as message flows between pools, not inside one pool.
- Each message has exactly one sender and one recipient.
- Steps where a process waits for a partner's answer use message events.

## Related

- [BPMN Collaboration Diagram](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/modeling-bpmn/bpmn-collaboration-diagram.md)
- [BPMN Swimlane (Pool and Lane)](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/modeling-bpmn/bpmn-swimlane-pool-and-lane.md)
- [BPMN Conversation Diagram](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/modeling-bpmn/bpmn-conversation-diagram.md)
- [BPMN Diagram Types](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/modeling-bpmn/bpmn-diagram-types.md)
- [Data Exchange between BPMN Processes](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/modeling-bpmn/data-exchange-between-bpmn-processes.md)
- [BPMN Event](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/modeling-bpmn/bpmn-event.md)
- [Messaging](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/integration/messaging.md)
- [BPMN Motivation](https://arc.fuet.ch/concepts/modeling-bpmn/bpmn-motivation.md)

## Sources

- [Business Process Model and Notation - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Process_Model_and_Notation) — en.wikipedia.org, accessed 2026-11-08
- [About the Business Process Model And Notation Specification Version 2.0](https://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/2.0/) — omg.org, accessed 2026-11-08
- [Message events | Camunda 8 Docs](https://docs.camunda.io/docs/components/modeler/bpmn/message-events/) — docs.camunda.io, accessed 2026-11-09