Standard

Business Process Notation

Documenting business processes support shared understanding, identification of inefficiencies, and delivering transformation. It helps teams to define responsibilities, dependencies, sequential ordering, and outcomes, and supports training, knowledge sharing, auditing, and continuity.

Part of: Standards collection

Purpose

This standard defines the notation for documenting business processes within the Department for Education. It ensures consistency and clarity in visualising workflows to support service delivery and improvement. This standard applies to all individuals and roles involved in documenting, visualising, and improving business processes.

Categories

Architecture

  • Business Architecture

Product and Delivery

  • Business Analysis

How to meet this standard

Business processes must be documented using either:

Processes must be solution-agnostic and include clear start and end points, actors, decision points (if applicable), and forward-flowing tasks. Task wording must be in a verb-noun format, and visualisations should be supported by task-level documentation. Stakeholder review and sign-off (person, role, date) is required.

Governance

The standard will be reviewed annually by the Business Analysis community and updated based on feedback, tool changes, and evolving best practices. The standard owner is responsible for initiating reviews and maintaining relevance.

Version history
Version Date Details
Current version