During the second wave of business process management, where IT systems were only participants in business processes, a cylinder was the commonly symbol to refer to the foundation of business applications, the data management system (DBMS). In the third wave, a cube is used to refer to the new foundation for business processes, the business process management system (BPMS).

The three sides of the cube can be used in two ways. The top face always refers to processes. Left and right refer either to internal and external information systems respectively, or alternatively to information systems and people. Either way, it's a symbol of convergence.

The cube is the symbol adopted by the Business Process Management System (BPMI.org) and is not the trademark of any individual vendor of process management solutions.