Over the weekend, Lombardi pushed out their August, 2009 Blueprint update.  This release continues Lombardi’s track record of pushing releases out every 6-12 weeks with significant improvements (and yet, without so many changes that current users get lost).

In the current revision, additional export options were added.  I was able to easily export my processes in an Excel summary format, as XPDL, and as BPMN 2.  The hardest part about doing this was just finding/remembering where the export feature was hidden within Blueprint (hint: instead of just opening your process, open a “project” and then you’ll get a view that lists each of the processes and gives you export options for each).  The help and/or forums will benefit from an update to guide users to this very useful page.

I always assumed that Lombardi would make it easier to import than to export from Blueprint, and admittedly the import features were rolled out first (from Visio and Teamworks for example).  But the export / publication features have caught up – to Powerpoint, Word, Excel, XPDL, BPMN2.  The last two representing the kind of structured export I wasn’t confident that Blueprint would support because those are also opportunities for other BPM tools to pick up the models for execution.  Clearly Lombardi feels confident that their end-to-end user experience and tooling will cause customers to use Blueprint and Teamworks in combination rather than Blueprint and other tools.  Lombardi claims this is the first shipping implementation of the BPMN 2 specification.

Earlier this year, I wondered out loud about the future of BPMN 2.0 as an exchange format given that Lombardi and a couple of other hold-outs had finally adopted XPDL 2.1 as a supported exchange format.  Lombardi reassured me that they still fully intended to support BPMN 2.0, and I recently had a conversation with Signavio (another vendor which supports XPDL -look for more on this in another post), who also stated their preference for BPMN 2.0 as an exchange format.

Full-text search is another feature that was added to Blueprint.  Not sure what technology they use behind the scenes but it seemed to do the trick for my searches.  The what’s new feed has been updated as well, but those and other refinements are a little more subtle – the kind of things you might not explicitly notice as being different, but you’ll appreciate being able to find things just a bit easier, in general (and *thankyou* for the longer process names – mine always seem to be a bit verbose, like my blog posts).

Bruce Silver has posted another update on model portability.  This is related to the previous discussion regarding XPDL, Lombardi Blueprint support, and model portability.

In this round, Bruce has time to really dive into the couple of aspects of the import that were not working, and tries to address them through some XSL judo.  Judging by the end-product screenshots he’s posted, he did a pretty good job at that.  The main issues were around losing lanes and XY coordinate mapping.

Bruce was generous enough to not only share the narrative of his efforts, but to share the end-product XSL as well (link available on his blog posting).  I think it shows (a) how close we are to real BPMN-level portability, (b) the fact that products still have a ways to go to support it properly (really, I have to write XSL to convert the models!?), and (c) how much harder accurate portable execution models would be given that these tools have different ideas about how steps in the process should be executed…

Thanks again Bruce!

UPDATE:  Bruce has an update on the model portability issues based on Diagram Interchange (DI) and BPMN 2.0.  He points out that some of the decisions made for supporting diagram interchange make it impractical to implement, despite being technically possible.  As usual, he provides good insight into the standards process for BPMN, and exposes some of the warts in the outcomes – hopefully it will result in some remedies in minor revisions to the specification.

I’ve been a skeptic of XPDL as the pre-eminent format for BPMN-drawn Models, but I’ve also been encouraged by Keith Swenson’s efforts to prove that it could be the de facto standard for BPMN model exchanging.

But it looks like my judgment that XPDL would only catch on with vendors like Lombardi (who have been beating the drum for BPDM and BPMN2 for some time) only if BPMN 2.0 didn’t sufficiently address the interchange problem might be a little off.  Lombardi just announced that its Blueprint July ‘09 release supports XPDL!  It could be that Lombardi is voting with its feet – perhaps BPMN2 doesn’t seem to solve the problem(s) they were hoping it would with regard to model interchange.  Or, perhaps they see XPDL interchange as the Right Now solution, and don’t see an advantage in waiting on BPMN2 support. After all, not only would Lombardi have to build the BPMN 2 export/import functionality, they would then have to wait on myriad other modeling tools to pick up the baton in order for there to be anyone to “interchange” with.

By picking up XPDL support, Lombardi Blueprint can now exchange models with a host of other modeling tools listed on the XPDL vendor site (perhaps Lombardi will now be added to the site).  Bruce Silver has already assessed portability between Blueprint and Process Modeler for Visio.

Update:  more info from Keith Swenson on his blog, regarding exporting from Blueprint and importing into Fujitsu’s Interstage BPM.

Having just referenced Connie Moore’s thoughts on collaborative BPM, it seems a propos to then turn our attention to “the process wiki” – which I learned about through Keith Swenson’s blog post (“Rise of the Process Wiki”) on the subject (and I’ve since seen a couple of additional references).

If something like the process wiki takes off, it could really change some things in the BPM world.  I’m still a little underwhelmed by what is already in the wiki, but I think that is partly because the vendor-specific collaboration forums offer more interaction with the models directly.  But, where I can see real value is in promoting discussion of the processes that are posted, trade-offs in design, etc.  That’s where it would play to a wiki’s strengths, in my opinion.

You can find a pretty good discussion of the site on Keith’s blog, as it dovetails nicely with his interest in model portability and XPDL as a vehicle for such.

Jim Sinur of Gartner poses this question in a blog post the other day.

Actually, he phrased it as “Is XPDL 2.1 on the Edge of Becoming a Dominant Process Standard”.  I think the answer is a “no (not yet).”

(this may just be because my definition of where the edge is, or what dominant means, is different than Mr. Sinur’s, or it may be because we disagree on some of the background material – either way, here’s my take)

Some arguments in favor of XPDL are cited by Mr. Sinur, and by others (Keith Swensen in a previous post as well), and by WfMC.  The primary argument in favor is the portability of the activity models.  And, a pretty inclusive vendor list that supports XPDL.

I’m not against XPDL at all.  I won’t even mind if it becomes the dominant process standard. But here are the arguments working against it for now:

1. First, keep in mind that these portable activity models are stripped of their execution attributes/elements – those elements are not, according to Mr. Sinur, part of the portability of XPDL 2.1.
2. Second, the processes that are ported are also devoid of the implementation of human activities (and typically, system activities), which are presumed to be implemented outside the BPMN model.  (See John Reynolds thoughtful post on this subject here)
3. When I look at the “implementations” of XPDL on the list above, I found a few problems with it:  the references aren’t dated (and may, therefore be out of date or obsolete), and several of the implementations are for tiny pieces of the software or companies being mentioned, and don’t represent full support of XPDL.
4. According to Gartner, the two leading BPM vendors are Pega and Lombardi.  I looked through that list and I couldn’t find either of them on the XPDL bandwagon.  If the two leading vendors in the space don’t find it necessary to support the standard, then I’m doubting that it becomes the dominant standard.

All that said, XPDL could still become the preferred format for model exchange if BPMN 2.0 doesn’t fit the bill.  Or Gartner could ratchet up the pressure on the vendors that haven’t supported XPDL so far to begin doing so – by weighting that support higher on evaluation criteria for the next Magic Quadrant (though that is quite a ways off, it probably gives these vendors no excuses if they haven’t delivered it by then).  Currently the vendors not on the XPDL list seem to be waiting on the BPMN 2.0 to be released.  If that spec doesn’t live up to the billing, I can imagine vendors supporting XPDL for model interchange as a backup plan.  But I don’t see those vendors investing in two solutions for interchange if they don’t have to.  And I can’t see calling a format a “dominant” format if the leading vendors aren’t fully supporting it.

I think the portability of XPDL, and the compliance tests they’ve put together, are a big step forward for the BPM community.  But that conclusion is regardless of whether XPDL in fact, dominates over BPMN, or vice versa.  Either way, the BPM community wins.  Because I’m sure some of the enterprising XPDL vendors will come up with a mapping from BPMN2 to XPDL 2.1… (These XML formats do lend themselves to being translated after all…)

Keith has updated the community with a Model Portability Landmark:  WfMC’s announcement of a BPMN Model portability test.

This is a great step forward, and Keith does a great job summing up the results.  Unfortunately, from my perspective, the portability standard uses XPDL, rather than the as-yet-to-be-approved BPMN 2.0.  I have nothing against XPDL, I just wish some of the vendors I work with supported it!  Without that support, I’m tempted to rain on the parade of this announcement of portability.  For example, missing from this list on WfMC’s website are Lombardi, Savvion, Appian, Intalio, Pega.  Well, Pega and Lombardi (arguably market leaders based on Analyst reports) were recently placed prominently in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BPM, and they don’t support XPDL.

However, there is a silver lining for those of us who don’t use products that support XPDL.  Whether BPMN portability can be accomplished or not is not longer a theory.  It is a fact.  It can be done, and it has been done.  Now the question is whether the BPMN-2.0 supporters will get to the altar of portability sooner than later… one can hope!