IDEF3

IDEF3, the Integrated Definition for Process Description Capture Method, is a business process modelling method that records how a particular system or organization actually works. It is complementary to IDEF0 and belongs to the IDEF family of modelling languages used in systems and software engineering. Instead of building a predictive or idealized model, it captures a description: an ordered account of events and activities told from the point of view of someone who knows the work, organized around a scenario that sets the focus and boundaries of the story. IDEF3 offers two description modes. A process flow description shows units of behavior joined by precedence links and junctions that carry the branching logic, and an object state transition network shows the states an object may pass through and the conditions for moving between them. Units of behavior can be broken down into finer diagrams or elaborated with the objects that take part. The method is meant to speed up business systems modelling and to hold alternative views of the same process without forcing them into one consistent model.