Do BPMN Diagrams Still Add Business Value in 2023?

65% of businesses strongly agreed that business process management (BPM) solutions and technologies have helped their organisations improve efficiency and customer satisfaction. Alongside the process optimisation market’s estimated valuation of $525 million in 2022, it is clear that business process management notation (BPMN) diagramming and business process plans are as essential as ever. 

But let’s face it: while absolutely essential, traditional ways of constructing BPMN diagrams and slide presentations are lacking the engagement needed for today’s audience. Where our digital world is driven by increasingly low attention spans in 2023, showing a traditional diagram or slideshow isn’t enough to engage stakeholders anymore. 

Do BPMN diagrams still add business value? The short answer is yes – but with significant caveats. For them to truly add business value, BPMN diagrams must be bolstered with modern technology that addresses their greatest weaknesses. 

In this article, we’re going to explore how modern 3D visualisation modelling methods could be the thing that allows the BPM industry to bring a greater shared understanding to their stakeholders.

Missing Depth of Impact

Traditional BPMN diagrams are undoubtedly useful for visualising horizontal and vertical data. At a glance you can gain an overview of a business and its processes, and see how different elements connect together.

However traditional BPMN often lacks the depth of information that’s behind every element. For example, you might create a diagram to show the new process behind a customer booking a demo. While every step of the journey is indeed clearly shown from a bird’s eye view, what’s missing is the data behind each step:

• How much did each part of the process cost?
• How many people within the organisation are responsible for each part?
• What is the contingency plan if one of these parts fails? 

These kinds of questions are hard to answer by just looking at a traditional BPMN diagram, as one is only given an overview. 

Business process managers could try adding another swimlane, or layering their diagram with text annotations, but this can quickly make a presentation look overwhelming and complicated. 

A better way to represent this hidden data would be through a 3D live model that allows you to change perspective while you present. An interactive modelling program, such as EMMa3D’s, enables you to create a diagram with all the components of each step:

It goes without saying that displaying all the information involved in a new process is crucial for informed decision making. By showing an additional axis of data, BPMN users can demonstrate the true depth of impact of a process to stakeholders without overloading them with text. People need to see content combined with context in a way that their brains can easily process.

Traditional BPMN diagrams can be great for quick overviews, but the business value beyond that is dwarfed by what 3D modelling can do. 

Not Everyone is a BPMN Expert

It’s time to address the elephant in the room, the main barrier that most BPM professionals face sometime in their career: BPMN is often seen as overwhelming and confusing to the average audience. 

There are good reasons for why the standards laid out in BPMN 2.0 have been so widely adopted in the BPM industry:

• It can depict all and any kind of business process, no matter how niche
• Good for visualising certain XML languages through a business orientated lens
• There are only four main types of icons and symbols to learn (connectors, activities, gateways, and events)

However, these advantages sometimes only benefit the creator of BPMN diagrams, and not the ones who they want to gain a shared understanding with. While business process managers might be all too familiar with swimlanes and gateways, the average stakeholder is unlikely to be on their level of expertise.

This difference in understanding can be bridged with 3D modelling. 68% of people believe that interactive presentations are more engaging, and with higher engagement comes a higher likelihood that they will want to learn about the thing being discussed. 3D models are inherently interactive: users can travel through a virtual meta-verse that displays data in ways that they might never have thought possible.

For BPMN diagrams to add business value in 2023, they must be understood by people from a variety of backgrounds. Stakeholders are too busy to become experts in things they’re not interested in. However they are never too busy to experience new ways of looking at their business – and especially when it’s delivered through an immersive format like 3D modelling.

Transformation Over Time Must be Clearer

Gartner recently found that 50% of organisational change initiatives failed, and it would not be surprising if it turned out that a large part of this was due to business modelling that failed to demonstrate long-term outcomes. 

For BPMN diagrams to add business value, they must be able to communicate transformation over time. But how effective are they at doing this?

Traditionally you might use multiple BPMN diagrams or flowcharts to demonstrate change over time. However, there are problems with this. Adequately readable diagrams can take up an entire slide or screen, and then having to switch between multiple ones makes it irksome to compare them during a presentation.

For BPMN diagrams to add more business value in this regard, they must be elevated with real-time motion that allows the presenter to seamlessly go ‘forward’ and ‘backward’ in time. 54% of marketers say that video is the most valuable type of content, and this statistic must be kept in mind by BPM professionals who want to develop a shared understanding with their stakeholders. 

Some BPMN software does allow for basic animation, but as discussed their effectiveness of displaying true impact is limited due to their two dimensions. For a better video experience, BPMN users should consider using an immersive 3D modelling solution:

Instead of being limited to just a bird’s-eye view, presenters can show animated business transformation from different angles over a period of time, and filter exactly what they want their audience to see.

On average people only give presentations 10 minutes of their attention before losing interest. This is a challenging time-frame for BPMN users to communicate long term effects in, so it’s imperative that they’re armed with the best tools possible to drive engagement. 

Add Business Value with 3D Visualisation

We don’t need to stop using BPMN diagrams. However if we want them to stay relevant in 2023, they must be elevated with modern tools.

The problems with exclusively using a traditional 2D lens are clear:

• They are missing impact
• Are not easily understood by the average stakeholder
• Cannot fully display business transformation

In a world filled with online content, your average diagram displayed in your average Powerpoint presentation is not enough to add business value. BPMN 2.0 is still a reliable framework to use, but why not place it on the pedestal it deserves?

A 3D platform such as EMMa3D is among one of the key tools that can elevate BPMN diagrams in 2023. BPMN experts can easily import their existing BPMN diagrams into the platform and easily transform them into compelling 3D models in just a few clicks. 

Shared understanding through 3D visualisation is at the core of what EMMa3D does, and it is our mission to help sales and business process management teams to adopt a systemic way of thinking.

Want to elevate your next BPMN diagram? Book a demo today.

Before co-founding EMMa3D in 2019, Ian served 16 years in the Royal Marines where he developed skills in leadership, training, and project management. After leaving the army in 2012, Ian brought his wealth of experience to organisations such as J.P Morgan and Barclays, where he realised his passion for bringing shared understanding between businesses. You can follow him on LinkedIn here.

¹ https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/business-insights-ideas/resources/the-guide-to-using-bpmn-in-your-business

² https://www.forrester.com/report/the-state-of-the-process-optimization-market/RES177405?ref_search=0_1673615731379

³ https://krausgroupmarketing.com/marketing-strategy/average-consumer-attention-span-has-dropped-again-in-2022/

⁴ https://www.modernanalyst.com/Community/ModernAnalystBlog/tabid/181/ID/1260/Why-I-Dont-Use-BPMN.aspx

⁵ https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/insights/organizational-change-management

⁶ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2014/04/30/why-powerpoint-presentations-always-die-after-10-minutes-and-how-to-rescue-them/?sh=1b5d7b7a78ba