BPM Techniques - Role Activity Diagram (RAD) & Role Interaction Diagrams (RID)

By Nishadha

Role Activity Diagram - (RAD)

Roles are abstract notations of behavior describing a desired behavior within the organization. They are often organizational functions. They also include software systems, customers and suppliers. RADs provide a different perspective of the process and are particularly useful in supporting communication. They are intuitive to read, easy to understand and presents a detailed view of the process and permitting activities in parallel.

Role activity diagram used in business process modeling created by our Activity Diagram Tool

Role Interaction Diagrams – RID

Activities are connected to roles in a type of matrix. Activities are shown vertically on the left axis and the roles are shown horizontally at the top. Text and symbols are used together in order to represent the process.

Although slightly more complex than flow diagrams, RIDs are fairly intuitive to understand and easy to read but they tend to be messy, with many arrows pointing left and right and are therefore quite hard to build.

Inputs to and outputs from the activities are not modeled. Therefore, important information is lost. RIDs are not as flexible as flowcharts, for example. They have quite rigid notation. But compared with other modeling techniques, RIDs are nevertheless flexible. They can be drawn using an Activity Diagram Tool

Role interaction diagrams offer flexibility but somewhat harder to draw