I had several appointments and errands today, and I listened to podcasts as I walked around downtown Toronto. One of them was the Sound of Vision podcast from back in May wherein Ethan Johnson interviews me about BPM (starting at 21:00 in the ‘cast), and there’s one point where I get really passionate about the fact that everything is a process: my true evangelist colours shining through. I do have a very process-centric view of business, to the point where some work that I’ve been doing recently on compliance started out being about content and records management, and has shifted to have a very strong focus on process.
I also saw an article this afternoon by Terry Schurter of BPMG, and he states that BPM and a process-centric view are so popular because such a high percentage of BPMS implementations (compared to other enterprise software) deliver on their promise of ROI. His view is that taking a process-centric view — “the idea that businesses can be viewed as a series of processes, and that those processes can be identified and managed to improve quality, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness” — resonates with end-user organizations, vendors and analysts, and that BPM aligns with the natural business structure.
It seems that you can’t pick up a business or technology article these days without it containing some reference to process, which means that Terry and I are not alone in our views.