I loved Ethan’s podcast (and post) on The Vision Thing on Friday, which included the wise advice:
You don’t need computers to implement a Business Process Management (BPM) strategy.
I’m in the process of finalizing a 2-day seminar on BPM called “Making BPM Mean Business“, which I’ll be presenting for the first time at FileNet’s user conference in November. The most common question that I get about the course: “Is it is a hands-on course?”, and the second-most common, which usually immediately follows that one: “Will you be doing a [software] demonstration?” The answer to both is no, but a lot of people find it hard to believe that there is two days worth of material on BPM that doesn’t require using a computer. In actual fact, there is probably about 100 graduate degrees worth of material to talk about BPM that would never involved turning on a computer, but there always seems to be a rush to buy some hardware and software and implement something — anything — before the larger context is even considered.
It’s a bit ironic (considering that this is being held at a FileNet user conference) that I’ll be spending the first day of the seminar talking about everything except FileNet: enterprise architecture, business intelligence, corporate performance management, quality management, business process outsourcing, BPM standards and the entire process of process modelling. No computers; just ideas and discussion. After all, if you don’t understand the context for BPM in your organizations, and the processes that are eventually to be automated, you’re not ready to put your hands on a computer yet.
This post highlights a fundamental issue in the BPM world – that of framing the concept. Sometimes I’m tempted to blurt out “its not the technology, stupid!”. So many people (and maybe many/most of the vendors?) assume or work to make BPM and technology synonymous, and they’re not. I’ll bet you run across that every day…
I came across this blog on BPM, unplugged. It may be late in weighing in but the topic is very current and relevant.
I provide BPM consulting and my biggest challenge is re-wiring what my potential clients think BPM is all about. The focus on software and the ploethera of workflow engines, EAI’s, process management tools and the like have muddied what BPM is supposed to be about….. transcending the organization to understand, respond to and measure its customers’ expectations for success.
Mistakingly, people think that the tools will build the process. Customers have needs and wants. The organization must understand what they are and the “people” in the organization must determin how, strategically and procedurally, the are going to meet the customers needs and wants. As a BPM consultant, my job is not to tell my clients what and how to do it rather to faciliate their own human capital (customers are part of this) to come up with solutions on their own and develop a framework to keep it going long after I’ve left. Only then, can we talk about how we are going to “implement” process, either manually or systematically.
I am really working hard to change the story and return to simpler times in BPM. Over the years, technologists, theorists, methodologists and so forth have so over complicated what BPM that we have lost our way. It’s time to get back to basics and unplug all of this. BPM has one simple purpose – getting the organization to reinvent itself around its customers.
David Novick
Novick Consulting LLC
http://www.novickconsulting.com