Zbigniew Misiak over at BPM Tips decided to herd the cats, and asked a number of BPM experts on the skills that are required – and not relevant any more – as we move into 2017 and beyond. I was happy to be included in that group, and my contribution is here.
In a nutshell, I had advice for both the process improvement/engineering groups, and the IT groups that are involved in BPM implementations. Basically, the former needs to learn more about the potential power of automation as a process improvement tool and how BPMS can help with that; while the latter needs to stop using agile low-code BPMS tools to do monolithic, waterfall-driven implementations. I also addressed the need for citizen developers – usually semi-technical business analysts that build “end user computing” solutions directly within business units – to start using low-code BPMS tools to do this instead of spreadsheets.
On the side of skills that are no longer relevant, I’m seeing less need for Lean/Six Sigma efforts that focus on incremental process improvements rather than innovation. There are definitely industries with material assets and processes that benefit greatly from LSS methodologies, but its use in knowledge-based service organizations in waning.
Check out the entire post at the link above for the views of several others in the industry.