Microsoft Visio now sits at the top of the Microsoft Process Management Product Stack, providing a Business Process Analysis (BPA) or Business Process Modeling (BPM) tool for business analysts, process owners/participants, and line of business software architects/developers.
Of course, your particular business may not have all, or parts, of the stack, but you will see in later chapters how Visio 2010 can be used in isolation for business process management to a certain depth.
If we look at the Visio BPM Maturity Model that Microsoft presented to their partners, then we can see that Visio 2010 has filled some of the gaps that were still present after Visio 2007. However, we can also see that there are plenty of opportunities for partners to provide solutions on top of the Visio platform.
Throughout this book we will be going into detail about Level 5 (Validation) in Visio 2010, because it is important to understand the core capabilities provided in Visio 2010. We will then be able to take the opportunity to provide custom Business Rule Modeling and Visualization.
