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UnixReview.com
December 2005
Book Review: Essential Business Process Modeling
Reviewed by Peter H. Salus
Essential Business Process Modeling
Michael Havey
O'Reilly, 2005
ISBN 0596008430
332 pages
Over the past 15 years, I have read all or part of about
two dozen books on "improving the software process" or
"modeling software production" or "process improvement"
... and, now, business process modeling. Save your
money. Read "Dilbert" or "User Friendly" and you'll
know as much as these folks are trying to push.
Yes, Peter's being negative.
Havey says this book is "for software architects and
developers". It isn't — it's for VPs and know-nothing
managers who want to spout empty verbiage at meetings.
Among the things concerning standards that irked me:
- The notion that BPM has "competing standards" (nothing enumerated by Havey
has ever been tabled at a national (e.g., ANSI) or international (e.g., ISO)
standards body) (p.19);
- That publishing a "specification" makes it a standard (p. 104); and,
- That a self-declaration creates a standards body (p. 175).
Here and there, Havey gets quite involved in his own syntax, as on page. 178:
"WAPI is the API, with bindings in C, CORBA IDL, and COM Automation,
for interaction between the enactment service and workflow client
applications, invoked applications, and administration and
monitoring tools."
Throughout, Havey uses an example of an online travel reservation
system.
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