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Software Architecture Guide

History of BPMN

Explanation

Section titled “Explanation”

BPMN is a standard way to draw business processes. Its history has three stages: a first public release, a handover to a new owner, and a major new version.

Origins. BPMN started at the Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI). BPMI released version 1.0 to the public in May 2004. The notation was meant to be shown alongside XML-based execution languages. Two examples are WSBPEL and XPDL. These are languages that software can run.

New owner. BPMI merged with the Object Management Group (OMG) in June 2005. OMG has maintained BPMN since then.

BPMN 2.0. Version 2.0 came out in January 2011. The name changed to Business Process Model and Notation. The new name reflected the execution semantics added in this version. Execution semantics define how a tool runs a process model.

Standardization and maintenance. OMG states that ISO formally published BPMN 2.0.1 as ISO/IEC 19510. BPMN 2.0.2 followed in January 2014. It is the current OMG version and supersedes 2.0.1.

For the notation itself, see the article BPMN 2.0 Notation. For the reasons behind BPMN, see BPMN Motivation.

Example

Section titled “Example”

A team finds a process diagram from an older project. It says it was drawn in BPMN. The team checks which version it uses. Version 2.0 added execution semantics, so a 1.x diagram predates them. Knowing this tells the team how much a tool could run directly from the diagram.

Trade-offs

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The latest version dates from January 2014. A long-stable standard can keep diagrams and tools compatible over time. The verified facts do not say whether newer versions are planned.

Checks

Section titled “Checks”
  • The document names the BPMN version used for its process models, for example BPMN 2.0.2 as the current OMG version.
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Sources

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