Arindam Ghosh July 21, 2009, 1 p.m.

I am trying to represent a scenario where web meetings are held with different participants. In the meeting I need to represent the following situations:-
1) the meeting requires an user (who must attend) and either the manager or the assistant must be present for the meeting to be started
2) the assistant will records the minutes of the meeting, and the manager will record the decision. The user will present his documents.

Can anyone tell me how to model this scenario in a BPMN diagram

Markus Güntert Sept. 3, 2009, 11:16 a.m.

Hello Arindam,

I tried modeling it with the basic BPMN elements. I'm sure there are more sophisticated solutions for your problem, I mostly want to figure out if I understood your problem correctly.

Marcio Carneiro Feb. 2, 2010, 2:35 p.m.

You are lohttp://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/oking for Compendium:

Markus Güntert Feb. 4, 2010, 5:59 a.m.

Dear Mr. Carneiro,

unfortunately your provided link is not working. Can you please refine?

Thanks & Regards, Markus Guentert

Alexander Grosskopf Feb. 4, 2010, 9:53 p.m.

This was the link he wanted to paste: http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/

Bill Macaulay March 3, 2010, 8:31 p.m.

While Markus deserves applause for attempting to model the basic meeting, when dealing with human collaboration it is likely to be wrong, and modeled below a reasonable level. I think this question is better looked at in the generic sense: when in the midst of a swimlane diagram and you have a shared task, how do you model it if a task can only belong to one swimlane? Do we create an additional aggregate swimlane representing the group? Put the task in the swimlane responsbile for scheduling the meeting? Before BPMN, many would just extend a task across swimlanes. How do we handle this in BPMN?

Ken Loh July 30, 2010, 5:20 p.m.

There is a suggestion at this post at http://en.bpmn-community.org/forum/78/.

However, are there still other alternatives?

Ken Loh July 30, 2010, 6:12 p.m.

Found several discussion on the same topic and they involve around these two solutions, one of which extends what Malik mentioned in http://en.bpmn-community.org/forum/78/

One of the website that sums it up is at http://www.modernanalyst.com/Community/Forums/tabid/76/forumid/5/threadid/2547/scope/posts/Default.aspx

1. Duplicate and Group The Shared Activity in All Lanes Involved

My interpretation is as follows:

2. Create a Separate Lane to Represent the Actors as a Group

Again, my interpretation is as follows:

The Meet to Formulate Strategies and Consolidate Plans are both activities shared by the roles in the different lanes.

Please share your views on the above interpretations.

Vlad Malik Aug. 3, 2010, 9:55 p.m.

@Ken Loh

I like the second approach as a way of avoiding repetition: "2. Create a Separate Lane to Represent the Actors as a Group"

However, I think it's more accurate to include the participant lanes as sub-lanes of the group lane, instead of having the group lane separately as if it were distinct from the individual participants. Then, one lane within the group lane will be empty, representing activities of the group as a whole (inheriting the lane title from the one step above). In Oryx, you can't have a part of the pool that is not in a lane, but in other tools you could (you would put the group activity directly into the Group pool and individual activities into the individual lanes).

What do you think?:

Henk Harms Aug. 10, 2010, 8:54 a.m.

Do you need a Collaborative process as the encapsulating pool?

Would the diagram itself not represent the Collaborative process?

Multiple nesting, although "legal" confuses the business.

Vlad Malik Aug. 10, 2010, 6:30 p.m.

@Henk

Every process needs a name, and this is captured by the pool name. It's redundant if the process name is already in the document title in which the diagram appears, but to me, document name is separate from process name, even if they are the same. So, for instance, if I copy-paste the diagram to another document, the process name is attached to the diagram.

In general, I've found people quite comfortable with breaking things down into components, especially if it provides detail and clarity. Not sure how they'd feel about nesting of lanes. Some tools allow you to put the process name horizontally, which can reduce the nesting look. One can also make it bold or a different color.

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