Creating a definition with State
A business process is a sequence of tasks meant to advance the state of a central entity at work from its initial state, to one of its final state. For example, a job application is received and undergoes a series of evaluations before either being rejected or accepted.
As such it first necessary to decide and define what that central entity is, and what its different states are. Continuing the job application example, the job applications would be the definition to create. In this context, appropriate states are, in sequence:
- In analysis
- Selected for interview
- Interview scheduled
- Selected for final phase
- Selected
- Not selected
In addition, the definition should include information in regards to the application itself, such as the name of the applicant, their e-mail, CV, etc. In the end, it might look like the definition below:
Choosing State Names
The states of the instance should unambiguously complete the following sentence: "The state of entity W is _____"
Numbered vs. Unnumbered. It is tempting to add numbers to the states, particularly when the process is very linear. However, while this is useful in an initial state of development, it is recommended that these are removed when the process goes into production. This is because as more processes may be added, the numbers stop making sense outside the initial process.