Glossary: Terms and Acronyms
Acronyms
BI: Business Intelligence
BMM: Business Motivation Model
BPA: Business Process Architecture
BPA: Business Process Automation
BPEL: Business Process Execution Language
BPM: Business Process Management
BPMI: Business Process Management Initiative
BPMM: Business Process Maturity Model
BPMN: Business Process Modeling Notation
BPR: Business Process Re-design
BPR: Business Process Re-engineering
BMM:Business Motivation Model
CMM: Capability Maturity Model
CMMI: Capability Maturity Model Integration
EA: Enterprise Architecture
MDA: Model Driven Architecture
OCEB: OMG-Certified Expert in BPM. See: OCEB Web Site
OCL: Object Constraint Language
OCUP: OMG-Certified UML Professional. See: OCUP at OMG
OOA&D: Object-Oriented Analysis & Design
OMA: Object Management Architecture
OMG: Object Management Group
PIM: Platform-Independent Model
PIM: Platform-Independent Model
PLM: Product Lifecycle Management
SOA: Service Oriented Architecture
UML: Unified Modeling Language
WfMC: Workflow Management Coalition
WS: Web Services
WSDL: Web Service Description Language
XBRL: eXtensible Business Reporting Language. See: XBRL International
XMI: XML Metadata Interchange
XML: eXtended Markup Language
XPDL: XML-based Process Definition Language
Terms
Activity: Processes are made of activities. Usually, an activity is the most detailed level of action displayed as an element in an Activity Diagram.
Activity Diagram: A UML model that shows the overall flow of control, describing step-by-step business or technical workflow actions.
Balanced Scorecard: The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system used to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization. See: Balanced Scorecard Institute
Business Intelligence (BI): Software systems or tools that extract patterns from existing data.
Business Motivation Model (BMM): Identifies factors that motivate and define business plans, the relationship of those plans, and provides a way to communicate and manage plans. See: BMM Specification
Business Process Architecture (BPA): Part of the Enterprise Architecture along with technology and information. Related to the organizational processes of the business.
Business Process Automation (BPA): The automating of processes using computer systems to remove or partially remove the need for human action.
Business Process Execution Language (BPEL): Short for Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WS-BPEL) is a language for specifying business process actions involving message exchanges with other systems.
Business Process Management (BPM): Generally, designing, implementing, and maintaining processes and architectures that align with the organization's goals and strategies. There are many specific definitions.
Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI): A consortium of business process modeling vendors that are working together to develop BPMN, an XML based business process language. See: BPMI.org
Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM): BPMM is basically CMM for Management. The OMG Specification has some interesting insights. Based on Humphrey's Process Maturity Framework. See: BPMM Spec at OMG
Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN): A widely used OMG standard for creating business process models based on a flowcharting technique. BPMN supports business process management for technical and business users with a notation that is clear to business users while able to represent complex process detail. See: BPMN.org
Business Process Management Tool: A software tool to create business process models and interface those models with rules, databases, people, or other processes. Simple tools may produce only graphical models, while larger applications may provide management views (dashboards), connect databases, interface with software models, or allow process simulation before implementation.
Business Process Re-design (BPR): A newer approach than Re-engineering to creating new business process that generally works with smaller process areas at a time that Re-engineering, and tries to keep the baby after the bathwater is gone.
Business Process Re-engineering (BPR): A popular approach in the 1990's to start large processes over from scratch. Due to many catastrophic failures and loss of company knowledge, it fell out of favor, but still used.
Capability Maturity Model (CMM): A collection of process improvement practices that describe the characteristics of effective processes. Not in itself a process, but originally a way to determine an organization's ability to perform on a software contract with the Department of Defense.
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI): A process improvement approach that provides organizations with the essential elements of effective processes.
Class Diagram: A UML diagram that shows the relationship between classes of objects and defines the aspects and behaviors of those classes. Commonly used in Software Engineering, but useful for deconstructing complex areas of business process.
Enterprise Architecture EA: An architecture in which the system in question is the whole enterprise, specifically the business processes, technologies, and information systems.
IDEF: An abbreviation of Integration Definition developed by the U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense and still mostly used by them. Contains multiple model definitions for specific situations.
ISO 900x (International Standards Organization): An international standard for how organizations should document their processes. An effort to create a well-defined process architecture once commonly used as a prerequisite to bit on contracts.
Lean: The core idea of Lean is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. See: Lean Enterprise Institute
Model Driven Architecture (MDA): OMG's official base architecture. It separates the functionality from the technology. Models define the design, construction, operation, and maintenance. These models can be used to generate different types of code, and as applications change, generate a new type of code from the same models.
Object Constraint Language (OCL): Provides a language to precisely define business rules and clarify transitions in UML models.
Object Management Group (OMG): OMG has been an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium since 1989. OMG's mission is to develop enterprise integration standards that provide real-world value. OMG's standards include BPMN, UML, XML and many more.
People-CMM: An adaptation of Carnegie Mellon's CMM best practices framework used in the management of a workforce, as organizations move toward mature processes from ad hoc and ineffective methods.
Supply Chain Management (SCM): A vague term used to describe many different methods and tools to help manage complex supply chains. Many organizations used these methods mostly to exact the best price from every stage of the process, but unstable transportation cost and recent natural disasters are bringing new light to the fragility of extended systems.
SCOR (Supply Chain Operations Reference): A method, framework, and techniques for analyzing and designing supply chain systems created by the Supply Chain Council. See: Supply Chain Council
Sequence Diagram: A model for the flow of logic between systems, processes, and roles.
Six Sigma: A methodology that seeks to improve the quality of process outcomes by identifying and removing the causes of errors and reducing variability. It relies on statistical methods and a structure of experts to incrementally increase profits and reduce risk. It's said that your airline flight is seven-sigma, and your baggage handling is four-sigma.
State Diagram: A UML model that shows all possible states of an object. States change or transition as events occur, and are restricted and directed by constraints.
Total Quality Management (TQM): A methodology for improving process quality associated with Dr. W. Edwards Deming. TQM emphasizes constant measurement of key indicators and statistical methods to continually improve process quality.
Unified Modeling Language (UML): OMG's most-used specification. A general-purpose modeling language for application structure, system behavior, architecture, business process, data structure, and much more. Most widely used modeling specification in the world. See: UML at OMG
Use Case: Defines the interaction between an Actor and a System. The most widely used process artifact for both Business and Software Process design. Usually a text based description of what is done to accomplish a specific goal. Can be made at a high or low level; describing broad organizational process, or how to login to a system.
Use Case Diagram: A type of UML diagram to graphically show a use case's relationship to actors by role, systems, or other use cases.
Web Services (WS): The W3C defines a "Web Service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network."
Web Service Description Language (WSDL): WSDL is an XML format for describing network services. See: WSDL at W3C
Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC): A consortium of vendors and users of workflow systems that work together on standards and to share information. See: wfmc.org
XML (eXtended Markup Language): An Internet protocol defined by the W3C. A file format that defines data and data rules. XML is used to define XML languages that set the terms an organization will use to exchange data.
XPDL (XML-based Process Definition Language): Provides a file format that supports every aspect of the BPMN process definition notation including graphical descriptions of the diagram, as well as executable properties used at run time. Developed by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) and approved by OMG.
Zachman Framework: A framework designed by John Zachman based on a matrix that depicts columns addressing aspects of: who, what, where, why, and how, and rows that detail some version of: planner, owner, designer, builder, and sub-contractor. Commonly used to help design or understand complex systems such as an Enterprise Architecture. See: Zachman International