• Personnel has become Human Resources (HR)
• Employees have become associates, partners, colleagues, team members, etc
• Soup has become broth, consommé, bisque – why can’t you just sell me some dang soup?

Ok, that last one was a bit personal… but It just goes on and on. Once good words are being pushed aside due to some inherent flaw in the original word. Sometimes, that flaw is simply the fact that the word has cobwebs. Other times, it’s because of political correctness, a false sense of intimacy, or some need to introduce change. Actually, we no longer introduce change. We now transform, renew and revitalize. Ick! So, when does BPM get the ax?

Perhaps, BPM will be pushed aside and replaced by a jazzier term. BPR was once a term we all used. But, BPR was poisoned with down-sizing and right-sizing, so it had to die. BPM doesn’t seem to have that same bile. But, time marches on…and words meet their doom.

In 2018, we will certainly be talking about the THINGS that we currently call PROCESSES. We will be talking about how they relate to BUSINESS and how they can be MANAGED. But… will be we talking about BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT (BPM) in one collective mouth-full? I wonder. To be fair, we might be calling cloud by different names; services by new tags; events by jazzier labels. Nothing resists change… er, I mean… Nothing resists transformation.

Labels are the spawn of marketing and we are become a market-driven economy. But, labels are real and powerful, so we cannot ignore BPM’s future, and we cannot leave it to the whims of some Ketel One drinking ad exec to come up with a sizzling new term for us.

What alternative terms can you imagine to describe that which we currently define by BPM? I don’t care about being right. I just want to see where we might go with this.

Think… and thanks for playing.

She is a digital native. Digital immigrants use different language: “I have established a login with that Facebook.com web site everyone is talking about.” Or, “I have set up an on-line account with the Facebook application that all the kids are using to stay in touch.”  Sounds like they are going to the bank, opening a new savings account. Digital immigrants. They are on the outside, looking in at the latest circus freak.

Digital immigrants have too much context. They remember life before “the hot new thing.” They do not show comfort and familiarity with the new toys. They use comfortable metaphors from their world: bulletin boards, desktops, trash cans, accounts, passwords (”Welcome to the secret club, Bob!”), folders, documents, etc. They attempt to manifest the real in the virtual. They have TOO much context. They can always remember “the before.” They remember too much of the “old country.” They are immigrants. It’s what they do best.

Digital natives are not that much smarter than all the rest of us. In fact, they have less knowledge. They have less context. They don’t know anything about “the old country.” To them, there is only one way to do things: the new way. “Get a Facebook.” It’s that simple. Keep that perspective in context. And you Digital Natives: Your “day of context” is coming. One day, your kids will laugh at your archaic ways from 2009. “Dad used to type and ‘text’ all the time. Can you believe that?” That is so lame… they didn’t even have LifeStreamingME back then! LOL!

Oh…on that “LOL” part… I doubt that will be used much in 2025, but I’m just a poor immigrant. I don’t know any better yet.

Most of our paper books exhibit “structural fidelity” – we can read them, and they do not fall apart in our hands – but they are hardly keeping up on “intellectual fidelity.” Some of my grammar and linguistic books from 1978 are appalling to read now. One reeks of “stick it to the man” kinds of language, reminding me that 1970 took a leave of absence from clear speech.

There are books that maintain adequate structural and full intellectual fidelity. My collections of short stories: Pushcart Prize, O’Henry Prize, Best American Short Stories. My favorite authors: Salinger, Capote, etc. These are still vibrant, but even there, they are getting worn. Structural fidelity does not last forever, even if intellectual fidelity does.

But my technical books… so very sad there. I have a 1942 book on radio electronics. I have it for nostalgia and some basic electronics/tube theory that is still exciting to boutique guitar amp manufacturers but not to the mass of humanity (even though the theories underpin our daily experiences). My Qualitz et.al. book on finite state automata is a classic that I keep because of the beautiful red cover. Turing’s and Church’s theorems are still accurately described in the book, but there have been so many better renditions since… this book is outdated, yet it looks perfect. There is incredible structural integrity, yet the intellectual integrity – still there – is less relevant in 2009.

So, e-readers will have to deal with structural fidelity and intellectual fidelity.  Does this ‘book’ fall apart after so many years of use. Will it deteriorate just as my college dictionary has? If so, will I be forced to buy a new one… but that seems odd… buying new copies of the same bits. It also seems unfair. But, aren’t we about to see the entire Beatles catalog re-released? If I have perfectly workable vinyl, why do I want it in MP3 (or MP4) format? Hmmm. So, there is a reason that we will buy anew that which we already have in an ‘inferior format.’ Inferior? Hmmm… “less popular.”

For those e-books that can maintain structural fidelity (migration paths, upgrade paths, escrow, etc.) then we still have the issue of intellectual fidelity. Will a book on “Secrets of the Backstreet Boys” be of interest in 30 years? Ignore the occasional pop culture historian or the insane masters degree thesis topic. What about the mass market? So, even if I have an e-reader that certifies readability in 30 years, it may be a moot point if the e-book is a load of dated crap.

I say that all the DRM, storage, cultural, and technical challenges to e-books are simply bumps along the road. Once we can conceive of a world where mass readership is via e-ink or other new digital means, well… I don’t see the “ink on dead trees” model as a long term win. My death notice, hopefully no earlier than 2050, will be printed on paper… I will require that in my will. But, I fully expect that most of my remaining friends will get my obituary delivered wirelessly to their portable readers. I fully expect that they will open the message, gasp (or smile), mutter a prayer for my family, and then return to reading the latest weight loss book or political novel or programming text they were reading before the interruption – content beamed from whatever constitutes ‘the bookstore’ in that distant future.

Bring it on. I will be moving a lot over the next 20 years… try being married to a new Methodist preacher and not moving from church to church. I have a vested interest in e-books. Have you ever tried to pack up an entire house full of books? How about doing it every three years? It’s much easier to carry a 1TB external drive, or two… or three.

DISCLAIMER: My comments here are not as an analyst covering this technology. I once was the lead analyst on document imaging and document futures, but that was a long time ago. These are my personal comments as a reader and a writer, and a former connoisseur of fine, hand-crafted bookcases.

I don’t want to say any more. Just look at this one and ask yourself how you would examine it from each perspective below:

1. Business Process Management
2. Governance, Risk and Compliance
3. Business Rule Management
4. Intelligence Quotient
5. Free Will and Self-Determinism
6. American Pioneering Spirit
7. Hawk
8. Dove
9. Civil Liberties
10. SOA

I threw that last one in there just to be funny. I think.

Scenario 2: At the doc’s.  You know the drill.  Fill out the paperwork and swear that you have read the copy of the HIPPA rules they gave you.  Only, they didn’t give you any.  So, you ask for the rules and get a strange look like you are from Mars.  Who asks for HIPPA rules?  What was I thinking?

Analysis:  Stop lying with processes, ok?  If you create a process to protect children, the process has to be followed from end to end. It’s no good to do the front-end “aren’t we the careful company” stuff and then skip the part that really matters.  And if you mention a process step in your documentation – “I certify I have read the provided forms” – then don’t freak out when someone actually asks you to provide the forms… the ones you said you already provided.

It’s things like this that could drive me to drink.  Only, I would probably drink too much and then have to go to the doctor’s and have to pretend to read some regulation they didn’t give me.  That would add insult to injury.  Instead, I think I’ll just go grab a pizza, get a UV stamp, and run in and out the exit door, just for fun.  No one will notice.  That’s because some people build processes without any regard for whether they actually work.

Now, BPA… would that be a good way to describe BPM efforts that MUST rely on run-time software tools that we call Business Process Management Technologies (BPMT)?  It would help distinguish those who see BPM as ‘the act itself’ and those who think that BPM MUST use technology to implement a process flow map.  I was with a company in Texas last week. They said, “We can’t do BPM because we don’t have a process engine.” Well, that’s wrong.  BPM can be done without any technology. But what if we used BPA to refer to BPM that specifically targets model-driven, run-time solutions? Would that help or hurt?

Don’t forget that BPA also means Business Process Automation… these terms are heavily overloaded.

I don’t want to start a language war, but we do need some way to distinguish between the class of BPM that involves model-to-engine delivery and the class of BPM that is nothing more than continuous improvement that makes no use of BPMS engines, etc.  At least, it would be helpful for some companies in Texas. 

Thoughts?  How do you distinguish this nuance, or do you even see it as an issue?  This is a minor issue of language but it can be a roadblock to communication.

Ultimately, the role of the RSD is to set the tone and direction for the entire BPM/BPI research stream that we deliver.  As I do that, I will likely use my blog to gather insight on key points I am debating.  That will likely mean that the majority of my blog topics will shift away from the esoteric, ironic and abstract and move to more traditional BPM topics.  That’s actually ok.  I can’t keep posting on tea, music and language all day long.

So, watch for more pointed BPM topics.

This framework with its related set of research notes is not a step-by-step cookbook.  What we offer is a set of best practices on governance, selecting and prioritizing cost optimization opportunities, hot spots to examine for cost savings, how IT should “clean its own house first,” and numerous other points that help you frame your intervention. 

The lead piece in a spotlight is known as the Article Top View (ATV).  That’s what Barb and I wrote to tie all the other research together into a cohesive unit.  The ATV is called Method to the Madness:  Applying a Methodological Approach to Cost Optimization and can be found here.  Note, you will not automatically see the document unless you are logged-in as a Gartner client.  Our research on this topic does require a fee or subscription.  It’s my humor that comes without cost… unless you count the psychic toll that results from reading too much.

If you have costs to cut, don’t.  Optimize them instead.  There is a huge difference between cost cutting and cost optimization.  You need to know the difference and then apply a methodological framework to your activities.  To that end, I suggest you start out with our research.

cheers!

“Before the server exploded, we erased all the…”

“We don’t know how your entire budget was…”

“The new owners need you to provide a full…”

“The bus company feels awful about that horrible…”

“Who knew the Teamsters allowed process experts to…”

“The doctor says only half of your team will…”

“You should have known that class 6 rapids are much too…”

“Yes, your Honor… we have reached a…”

“McCoy’s humorous BPM posts were not meant to be taken…”

I will talk more about this, but here is a link to the program.  Also, I believe this will be webcast a bit later.

http://www.computing-margins.org/

Feeling altruistic?  Good.  And by the way.  This conference spawned from work going on in a hot bed of computer scientists.  Remember them?  They once did compiler design, fractals and artificial intelligence.  They still do, but their mandate has taken on a much wider meaning over the past years.  Just like most everything else, they have seen a shift from theoretical to applied research.  Just keep the proper balance, as they do.

Disclaimer: I am on the board of advisors for this particular college of computing.  My pride is not without vested interest.