How We Work
Three-Layer BPMN Process
One diagram, three zoom levels, zero misunderstandings. Our Three-Layer BPMN method aligns executives, business ops and engineers around the exact same workflow picture—long before a developer touches a keyboard.
1. Why Three Layers?
| Pain with "one-size" diagrams | Three-Layer Cure |
|---|---|
| Executives tune out when tech detail appears. | Level 1 – Vision Map keeps to a single swim-lane and five-box storyboard. |
| Ops teams lack clarity on hand-offs and SLAs. | Level 2 – Business Flow adds role swim-lanes, timers and gateways. |
| Developers hunt requirements in 💬 chat threads. | Level 3 – Technical Detail drills into system calls, data contracts and error paths. |
Result: one living diagram that each audience can zoom to their comfort level.
2. The Layers Explained
■ Level 1: Vision Map
- Audience:
- C-suite, product owners
- Shape:
- 3–7 high-level activities
- Goal:
- Agree on the end-to-end value stream
- Time-box:
- 60-minute whiteboard
■ Level 2: Business Flow
- Audience:
- Process owners, SMEs, compliance
- Shape:
- Swim-lanes per role, timers, gateways
- Goal:
- Nail hand-offs, SLAs, and pain-points
- Deliverable:
- PDF & Miro link for backlog grooming
■ Level 3: Technical Detail
- Audience:
- Architects, developers, QA
- Shape:
- Service swim-lanes, API tasks, data annotations
- Goal:
- Generate BDD scenarios, estimate effort
- Bonus:
- IDs map 1-to-1 with Gherkin scenarios
3. Workshop Flow (Typical 3-Day Sprint-0)
| Day | Morning | Afternoon |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stakeholder canvas & Level 1 | Level 2 skeleton pass |
| 2 | Level 2 deep-dive & pain-point heat-map | Level 3 service lanes + data artefact tags |
| 3 | BDD discovery sessions | FCI scoring & billing-model workshop |
FCI jumps on average +3 points after the three-layer workshop.
4. Tooling
| Task | Tool |
|---|---|
| Diagramming | Camunda Modeler / Cawemo |
| Live collaboration | Miro board |
| Scenario linkage | Cucumber tags |
| Version control | Git |
| Doc automation | ADR template |
5. Deliverables Package
- Vision Map (PDF + PNG) – fits on one slide.
- Business Flow (Miro + SVG) – role-based training ready.
- Technical Detail (BPMN XML) – importable into engines.
- Traceability Matrix – task ↔ story ↔ scenario.
- Risk Heat-Map & FCI Report – drives billing model.
All artifacts are yours, licensed MIT—use them even if you don't build with us.
6. Common Pitfalls & How We Guard Against Them
| Pitfall | Guard-Rail |
|---|---|
| Paralysis-by-diagram (50+ tasks) | Hard cap of 7 tasks in Level 1; split flows if needed. |
| Over-engineering early | L3 postponed until integration owners join Day 2. |
| Diagrams get stale | Git commit hook fails if diagram XML changes without bumping version. |
| Lost context between tools | ID schema ties BPMN L3 → Gherkin → ADR so updates cascade. |
7. Mini Case
Insurance-Co Onboarding — Level 1 collapsed a 14-step process to 6 core stages; Level 2 surfaced two duplicate manual checks; Level 3 revealed a missing Sapiens API. Result: FCI rose 3.1 → 7.8 and MVP budget dropped 18 %.
8. Frequently Asked Questions
- Do I need BPMN software installed?
- No—Miro board exports to PNG/PDF; we hold the XML in Git so devs can open it later.
- Can we automate the L3 diagram?
- Yes—Camunda or Temporal can import BPMN XML to run the workflow engine.
- What if our team already has process maps?
- Great—send them over; we'll stitch them into the three-layer framework.