BPMN in Pegasystems PRPC Flow Rules

There is a perception that Pegasystems PRPC can be used to create BPMN-compliant process models. However, I consider this perception to be incorrect.

This slide show takes you through my reasoning, but I can sum up my conclusion with a golf analogy:

No matter how good your 3-iron is, you can’t turn it into an 8-iron by scratching on the number.

Don’t get me wrong: the PRPC Flow Rule is an excellent tool (a really good 3-iron, if you will) – but there is more to BPMN than the shapes themselves.

Note: the Pega Developers Network does not claim that you can model BPMN-compliant models within PRPC, but some Pega Business Architects have made that inference.

Kind regards,

Declan Chellar

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2 comments to BPMN in Pegasystems PRPC Flow Rules

  • Ramon Diaz

    Are there any improvements to the BPMN 2.0 support on Pega 7. Do you have an updated version of your presentation

  • Declan Chellar

    Hi, Ramon.

    Even if Pega did update their BPMN stencil for Flow Rules to address the fact that it does not adhere to the semantics described BPMN specification, there is a more fundamental problem.

    BPMN is for modelling business processes in a technology-agnostic way (whether you are analysing As Is or To Be processes). However, Pega Flow Rules are for modelling the technical design of how Pega (technology-specific) will model part of a business process. You can only model in a Flow Rule what Pega is going to implement. You cannot model manual business activities and you cannot model activities that are to be performed using another technology.

    For example, for my current customer, I am modelling business processes that I know will be implemented by three different technologies (although I ignore that fact). Pega is only one of those technologies. My process models ignore that technological split (in fact, they should have brought me in to start those models before the technologies were chosen but that’s a different story). I have a “System” swimlane but it represents nothing more than a desire to have certain activities automated; it does not represent a particular software solution. In the technical architecture, that “system” becomes three technologies.

    If you wait until you have chosen and installed Pega before modelling business processes, you will end up only modelling part of those processes and, more importantly, you may end up modelling processes for which Pega should never have been the chosen technology in the first place. You end up trying to ram a round peg into a very expensive square hole.

    What do you think?

    Kind regards.

    Declan

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