Greetings, and welcome. This blog is intended to stimulate thought, discussion, and maybe even action, in this forum and among you and your colleagues at work. In my three decades of IT-watching, I've learned that no one has a monopoly on good ideas, and a great way to unearth some is by, welll, stirrin' things up a bit. So, without further ado...
There is barely an enterprise left that is not planning, building, or managing some BPM or BPM-related initiative. My company, RFG, and other industry observers and advisors have identified BPM as a driver of other high-profile efforts, most notably service-oriented archictures (SOAs), as you can read at the ebizQ SOA in Action and Analyst Corner online resources.
All well and good. But the experiences of my company's clients and other enterprises, as many as half of those well-intentioned BPM efforts are in danger of failing outright, or never fully meeting what initially seemed like perfectly reasonable expectations. (How's that for provoking some thought?)
There are a lot of reasons why this is likely true. Fortunately, many of them are avoidable, and some of those that are not avoidable are correctable. In this case, to paraphrase a criticism often leveled and governmental and military agenices, there may not have been sufficient resources to do it right, but there may still be opportunities to do it over -- and better.
Since this is an inaugural blog, it makes sense to start with first principles. The very term "business process management" is fraught with implicit assumptions and opportunities for friction, if not outright conflict.
After all, those are business processes supposedly being managed, but they're being managed and supported by IT-based tools. The people runing them often have their own incumbent processes, many (but likely not all of which) are already proven and documented. Those people also often have their own ideas about who owns what aspects and elements of BPM initiatives.
Meanwhile, a lot of business people still have ideas about IT that are throwbacks to those popular in the 1970s and 1980s -- a lot of doubt and suspicion about what all that money's really buying, and what those IT people are really doing.
This situation is not helped by the fact that a lot of critical business processes are poorly documented or entirely undocumented, and rarely if ever tested or refined regularly or in response to changes in business conditions or goals. At too many enterprises, "BPM" is still conducted largely anecdotally, and "supported" by sticky notes and spreadsheets.
So what's the good news? Growing numbers of enterprise IT and business decision-makers are "getting it," and figuring out how to tackle BPM effectively. At some companies, BPM efforts are informing and being integrated with efforts to address compliance, risk, and security, often under the aegis of a Chief Risk Officer (CRO) or similarly senior executive. At some enterprises, IT executives and teams with proven, successful experience in process, project, and project portfolio management are becoming ambassadors and advisors to colleagues beyond IT striving towards BPM that delivers real, measurable, and repeatable business value.
Future outings in this space will offer guidance and encouragement to all who are seeking to plan, build, or manage effective BPM initiatves at their enterprises. Meanwhile, though, some early-stage observations and recommendations those involved in such initiatives may find useful.
1. Talk early and often. BPM is a big deal. For every initiative, there are multiple stakeholders and influncers, each with agendas, desires, fears, and goals. Leaders of effective BPM initiatives identify these people and their agendas, then work with and/or around them to get the most important and influential on board and spreading the good word.
2. Think globally, act locally. Every critical business challenge, from business analytics, intelligence, and performance optimization to litigation support, is an opportunity to push BPM a little bit further into and across your organization. The goal is to identify and put out fires in ways that eventually fireproof the building, so to speak.
3. Measure twice, deploy once. BPM requires effective, proven, repeatable processes, too. And since everything related to BPM has significant effects on the business, everything related to BPM is subjected to intense scrutiny. Business-driven, clear metrics and performance indicators are critical to the effective "marketing" and "sales" of BPM initiatives -- and to maximizing their business value.
4. Be inclusive. The "business" in "business process management" includes everything and everybody at some point in the "value chain." BPM must be similarly inclusive and holistic, with no business element, resource, or user left behind.
Tall orders, all -- and just the beginning. However, as mentioned earlier, it's all as possible as it is necessary. All you need is budget, senior executive sign-off, and business unit leader and user buy-in. Oh, and a great plan, and a great team. And great technologies from vendors that understand your business and are committed to your success.
Sure, it's daunting. But you're up to it. You see the needs and the opportunities, and you're ready to pitch in. And there are companies succeeding with BPM, and vendors and technologies helping them do it. I hope to contribute, by providing some analysis, observations, and recommendations -- and provoking those thoughts and conversations I mentioned earlier. So feel free to write, and let me know what you think, and what kinds of conversations you're having about BPM at your place of business. Let's see what happens.
Michael Dortch has been an analyst, 'information entrepreneur,' speaker, and writer about IT and 'the real world" for the past 30 years. After almost 10 years at the Robert Frances Group (RFG), Michael begins a new position with Aberdeen Group in September.
Dennis Byron is an analyst with ebizQ, focusing on Open Source Software as well as Business Process Management technologies.
