Business process mapping

A business process is a sequence of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment that, when applied successfully, serves a particular business goal. Business processes, visualized as graphs, can be an extremely helpful tool in our analysis toolbelt. Business process diagrams are usually written using UML or BPMN notation, but simple flowcharts are also common.

Tip

When starting to elicit requirements, ask your client stakeholders whether they have already captured the business processes that they want our system to realize. If not, ask them whether any of their domain experts can possibly produce such diagrams. As well as helping you elicit requirements, this will also make them consider and evaluate their requirements much more carefully.

Let's take a look at a diagram for an order approval business process flowchart (courtesy of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Approvals.svg):

Fig. 5.7 –...