Comments on: How Will BPM Deal with Pattern Based Strategies (PBS)?

By: Don’t Let the Winds of Change Blow BPM Away

Don’t Let the Winds of Change Blow BPM Away — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:07:44 +0000

[...] http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/11/18/how-will-bpm-deal-with-pattern-based-strategies-pbs/ [...]

By: Jacob Ukelson

Jacob Ukelson — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:20:11 +0000

Jim,
Since “seek and model” is one of the lynchpins of PBS – the ability to manage non-standard processes and exceptions will take on even more importance. It is like what you mentioned in your post on “Processes Enable Early Warning for Emerging Business Scenarios”.

The problem is that those emergent processes are exactly the unstructured, ad-hoc, human processes that most BPM suites and approaches don’t handle very well. For BPM vendors to start focusing on unstructured, ad-hoc, human processes will be a huge change for them, and require quite extensive overhaul of both their technology and approaches.

By: Russ Blaesing | SharePoint Workflow | SPS Workflow

Russ Blaesing | SharePoint Workflow | SPS Workflow — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:48:11 +0000

PBS sounds like a great way forward, and BPM has to play an essential role in implementing it. I’ve long since thought that application of business models a la software models would eventually catch on, and until then, have been focused on tying Balanced Scorecards and other strategic corporate strategy constructs in the BPM and workflow.

I look forward to more from Gartner on this.

By: Alberto Manuel

Alberto Manuel — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:48:32 +0000

Jim: I was discussing this with some colleagues and it occurred to us that the shared services center of our company there is a financial group that has a habit of cross information on worldwide economic performance and the markets where we sell products – in this case bathtubs . This group make predictions and often makes recommendations, some of them are translated into financial rules. Two years ago, they told reduce working capital and watch it very closely.
What we know is that this work is executed manually by merging data. The internal data comes from our systems, external data, is obtained analysing reports of the European Central Bank.
If I understand what you are proposing is the automation of the analytical function, so much more advanced than, say, what wallmart is doing today detecting changes in consumption patterns and thus prevent losses in business. That will be much more predictive, something which the principle applies in predictive maintenance of industrial equipment or in electricity transmission lines. I would be glad you can tell something more about it you when something is ready, because I think this issue is of vital importance for strategic management and it’s impact in business processes.

By: Jim Sinur

Jim Sinur — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:32:06 +0000

Alberto,

Thanks for the article. We have been gathering a number of examples. One manual example is a financial organization that has dedicated a group of analysts that ar looking for patterns that may affect this organization. Automation assists are the focus as they take on more pattern seeking.

Jim

By: Alberto Manuel

Alberto Manuel — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:18:10 +0000

There is a very interesting article on the subject in HBR. Spotting Patterns on the Fly from HBR November 2002 http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2002/11/spotting-patterns-on-the-fly-a-conversation-with-birders-david-sibley-and-julia-yoshida / ar / 1.

Either way there are already applications of this concept in business? Can you give examples?

By: Jim Sinur

Jim Sinur — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:14:10 +0000

VJ,

There are two modes.

One is the proactive mode where one has a pattern that one is looking for based on opportunities and threats. Then the presence of the pattern or contributing events would trigger an alarm/notification for action.

The other is reactive with no plan where your scenario would be involved. I forsee leveraging a number of algorythms to serch, like BI except real time. Simulation, correlation, pattern matching, complexity algorythms, and predictive analysis could help. This is why it will require an evolution of people and effective technologies.
This is a journey.

Jim

By: VJ

VJ — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:01:03 +0000

Jim,
Let me think ahead of time, Assuming I’m into a new world of PBS, thousands of Patterns would have evolved by then, on one hand give me an oppurtunity to explore them.. but that alarms me, would I not require a powerful simulation tool to provide the benefit forecast/ atleast identify the anti patterns..
This would take me back to square one – I would be in search of a technology to support my judgement.

By: Monique Calisti

Monique Calisti — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:25:12 +0000

Jim

I agree with your assessment that \BPM, in the future, will be goal
driven…\ I’d like to add, however, that already today it *can* be goal
driven.

That’s why we at Whitestein Technologies decided to extend standard BPMN with goal-oriented modeling artifacts and concepts (GO-BPMN). Our process engine directly executes such models, interprets the goals and dynamically composes an optimized process path out of alternative action patterns while always factoring in the real-time business context and events. This is possible today.

I appreciate your thoughts and Gartner’s commitment to get more people aware of and thinking about this major ‘upgrade’ of what BPM(S) can do.

Cheers,
Monique

By: Jim Sinur

Jim Sinur — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:53:01 +0000

VJ,

PBS will not just focus on pain points, it will also identify opportunities as well. On a micro level, there will be industry patterns, but there will also be macro paterns as well. PBS is a mindset and discipline that will be supported by combinations of technolgies. The key seek, model and adapt cycle will need methods and tools. The evolution will be fun to watch, but there will be many starting points. Changing the way people think is crucial.

Jim