What do pools represent within a BPMN diagram?

In BPMN (Business Process Model and Notation) diagrams, pools serve as a framework to delineate the different participants involved in a business process. They represent high-level entities—such as entire organizations, departments, or roles—that carry out a series of processes. By using pools, the BPMN diagram can illustrate how different organizational entities interact in the execution of a process while maintaining clarity and structure.

Choosing a collection of activities that form a process for an organization captures this essence, as pools aggregate various tasks and subprocesses executed by their associated participants. This visual separation enhances the understanding of cross-organizational processes and the interactions that may take place, making it easier to convey how these entities collaborate to achieve a common goal within the workflow.

Other options, while related to BPMN concepts, do not accurately depict the function of pools. For instance, individual tasks, organizational boundaries, or separate workflows lack the comprehensive overview that pools provide regarding the collaboration between different organizational roles throughout the entire process.