Order of implementation

Operational efficiencies can be gained when creating a process by implementing general details first, and addressing more specific details later. The following suggested workflow is effective for minimizing the effort required to support changes that are made to process diagrams when initially mapping the business process on the process diagram:

Create the process diagram using activity elements to represent the activities in the process.
After the activities of the process are represented and the routes are drawn to show the order of execution, replace the activity elements with operations.
Create process variables and configure the properties of the operations as required.

This order of implementation is effective for the following reasons:

Activity elements can be easier to work with when initially drawing the process diagram because the intended representation of operations is flexible.
The order in which operations are executed should be determined before they are configured because their order affects the flow of data, which informs the configuration of the operations. Changing the order before you configure the operations does not require reconfiguration of the operations.

Additionally, modelling the business process using activity elements requires a different skill set than implementing the model with service operations. These tasks can be performed by different team members that play different roles.

Order of implementation

See also