What is BPMN?

BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) is an internationally standardized notation for graphically modeling business processes, maintained by the Object Management Group. It defines symbols for activities, events, gateways, roles (pools and lanes), and message flows, so that business and IT can read the same representation. BPMN models are both human-readable and technically executable.

Why does this matter?

In many organizations, BPMN is the language in which target processes are documented. That makes it the natural reference point for Conformance Checking: the as-is process reconstructed from data is compared against the BPMN model to determine deviations objectively.