01 – Why Learn BPMN?

You’re about to learn a new language for describing business processes, the Business Process Modeling Notation, or BPMN.  If you have done any process flowcharting, you will find it comfortably familiar at first.  But as you learn more about it, it will occasionally seem strange and, to make things worse, strict and unbending.  Because unlike traditional flowcharting, the shapes and symbols don’t mean whatever you define them to mean.  Their meaning is defined already in a specification.  So before we get started creating BPMN diagrams, I’d like to prepare you for the battle ahead by explaining why learning BPMN, and learning to use it correctly, is worth the effort.