Swimlanes?

Started by murraygc, September 21, 2017, 23:50:13 PM

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murraygc

Is it possible to represent swimlanes in Archi? Any idea of how to do that?

MarcF88

There's the location element, whose meaning could be extended to something swimlany. But if you say swimlane, are you not actually saying workflow and process modelling? Because workflow or process modelling and archimate, they are different kind of beasts.

If you are actually interested in relating archimate to workflow, I would refer you to Gerben Wierda's Mastering Archimate book, there's a chapter in there about just that. Also checkout the linkedin Archimate group, he hangs out there, or masteringarchimate.com .

Marc

Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie

Hi,

Swimlanes can be created in Archi but manually ;-) There is no concept of pool in ArchiMate, thus if you want something similar, you can just extend your roles as big boxes inside which you nest your process steps.

Gerben discussed this some time ago on his blog: https://masteringarchimate.com/2016/03/22/modelling-processes-in-archimate/

Regards,

JB

PS: I really don't see the link between swimlanes and location, except maybe for a joke, but even in this case I would have use Facility ;-)
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murraygc


MarcF88

Quote from: Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie on September 22, 2017, 13:39:08 PM

PS: I really don't see the link between swimlanes and location, except maybe for a joke, but even in this case I would have use Facility ;-)

I'm not proficient enough to joke in Archimate, sorry. But I am tempted to dig a bit deeper, so thank you for that.

In the Archimate specification, I read "The location element is used to model the places where (active and passive) structure elements such as business actors, application components, and devices are located. [...] A location can also aggregate a behavior element, to indicate where the behavior is performed".

I do not have a BPMN specification handy, but I do have a Bruce Silver who paraphrases the spec: "Lane is an optional subdivision of a process level. [Lanes] were used to associate process activities with particular actors - departments or roles. [...] BPMN2 actually allows them to be used for any kind of categorization."

So it seems BPMN lanes are a generic kind of grouping - abstraction mechanism, however it seems associated with with whom rather than with where the action is. This is also the angle Wierda chooses, he associates BPMN lanes with Archimate roles.

Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie

Hi,

Quote from: MarcF88 on September 26, 2017, 06:40:43 AM
I do not have a BPMN specification handy, but I do have a Bruce Silver who paraphrases the spec: "Lane is an optional subdivision of a process level. [Lanes] were used to associate process activities with particular actors - departments or roles. [...] BPMN2 actually allows them to be used for any kind of categorization."

So it seems BPMN lanes are a generic kind of grouping - abstraction mechanism, however it seems associated with with whom rather than with where the action is. This is also the angle Wierda chooses, he associates BPMN lanes with Archimate roles.

Yes, in BPMN lanes are a visual way to show actors/roles. They can also be used to model some system that automates tasks, which would then be modeled as Application Component in ArchiMate.

If you want to show arbitrary categorization (lanes in BPMN2) then the equivalent in ArchiMate would be Grouping element.

Regards,

JB
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TomFenn

You can expand the role or actor into a long rectangle and then drop the process steps.  Pick assigned to as the relationship with the dialog box pops up.  Once you place a few actors next to each other you'll have something that looks very like a swimlane chart.

I think archimate works better for process modeling than people give it credit for.

Tom