Jim SinurOrganizations have been improving their processes successfully over the past decades and BPM blew in to accelerate the process improvement movement. BPM has proven essential in surviving the downturn and organizations are counting their money, saving time and pleasing customers. We are nearing a critical juncture that causes me to pause. There is a fork in the road ahead and we will have to decide what we want to do with BPM going forward.
![MPj04221260000[1]](http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/files/2010/02/WindowsLiveWriterDontLettheWindsofChangeBlowBPMAway_7F6EMPj042212600001_2.jpg)
Continue to Mine Savings:
There is certainly nothing wrong with savings, but with our heads down in the mine shaft, maybe we are missing something bigger. For organizations that are just getting into to BPM, this is an essential activity. Since we are not out of the woods yet with the economic storm yet (though GDP is heading on the right direction now), we can’t really stop mining cost savings. We do have to worry about BPM flaming out as the economies pick up momentum. We will need to turn to revenue opportunities and delighting out all of our constituents (customers, suppliers, vendors, employees and investors) with the way processes seem to know us.
Moving to a Better Process Experience;
People in the collective will flock to inherently better technologies and processes. Just look at how Steve Jobs has taken advantage of this phenomenon. We need to make processes worth flocking to capture the way people want to live and work. While this is not a clear numbers game and requires faith, now is the time to be thinking about better processes. Processes need to wrap themselves around people in way that seems unthinkable today. This will only happen when the processes are context enriched. The process knows who, where and when to be involved with a person or persons in a collaborative and social way in context of conditions, conflicting goals and physical device that happens to be the closest and desired.
Background reading:
http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/11/18/how-will-bpm-deal-with-pattern-based-strategies-pbs/
http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/10/22/whats-hot-in-bpm/
Yes savings are good, but a positive moving economy needs a multiplier affect on revenue generation and organizational productivity that works smart; not just hard. We need Context Enriched Business Processes and they will become the minimum price of admission for the changed economic realities. Let’s not let this one blow away.
Category: BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Green Optimization Simulation Tags: BPM, Business Rules, Green, Optimization
16 responses so far ↓
1 Martijn Linssen February 3, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Hi Jim, that’s a daring statement I must say, “BPM has proven essential in surviving the downturn”.
I’m an Enterprise Integration Architect, not an Enterprise BPM Architect (no customer demand for that yet) but you can imagine that I do run into EAI, ESB, SOA and BPM as they all pretty much overlap a bit
I’ve seen ESB, EAI, SOA, all over the place. I haven’t seen BPM anywhere in the last 10 years. It’s enough of a problem to get ESB and SOA out in some form, it seems
So I’m really interested in the figures you have about BPM, maybe I can show those to my customers and get them excited?
2 Jim Sinur February 3, 2010 at 12:38 pm
I would suggest you start with these blog posts:
http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/08/24/bpm-awards-the-early-returns/
http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/08/31/the-gartner-bpm-award-winners/
We have survey data to back this up as well. The average ROI is between 15 and 20%
3 Theo Priestley February 3, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Interesting post Jim. We are indeed at a fork in the road but it’s no bad thing, BPM of 20 years ago needs to evolve now and you can choose to evolve with it or cling onto an old idea.
My latest blog post hints at where this is all going now…
http://www.bpmredux.com/blog
4 uberVU - social comments February 3, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by JimSinur: Will BPM Survive Long Term or be Replaced by a New Process Improvement Movement? http://bit.ly/9kM5r9 #BPM #BRMS #entarch #IT #Gartner…
5 Phil Ayres February 3, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Jim, I agree with you that BPM needs more than savings. The traditional vendors charge a fortune for toolkits that often only provide basic back-office solutions, so it is essential that there are more benefits than pure savings.
Taking on your idea that processes need to be appealing to people in the way they want to live and work, I would suggest two things:
1) use a pure technology stack to automate the work that does not need human intervention (straight-through processing is not such a bad idea when it works, right?).
2) provide easy to implement, good enough solutions that incorporate the streamlined processes where needed, with the support for human work that makes employees valuable.
In many scenarios, BPM still tries to put too much process on top of human interactions, while being too complex to implement for purely automated processes. This leads to the lengthy implementation times we are so familiar with, and the reduced ROIs. In my opinion it is time for something more lightweight, and less technically focused than BPM is today.
Less focus on process, more on activities and interactions. ‘Context Enriched’ to use your term!
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7 Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist February 4, 2010 at 12:00 pm
I agree with all of your assertions regarding good process. I hope you have seen the “proof” that BPM has been essential during the downturn, because I am skeptical. I am an absolute believer in the power and promise of good process, but process improvement and institutionalization takes time. If the organization was not already process-centric, I doubt many have been able to complete the cycle of becoming process believers, designing new processes, implementing those new processes and managing them to successful outcomes.
Your Steve Jobs analogy is a bit of a stretch. Apple introduces new technologies, not new processes per se. Yes, their technologies drive new behaviors, but many of the processes they inspire are born outside of Apple. Organizations repeatedly encounter failures when introducing new technologies because they don’t adequately address the business process changes that must accompany the introduction of the new technology – which is why the technology is frequently blamed or viewed as a failure.
Lastly, any process that is not “context enriched” is a disaster waiting to happen. The whole point behind process is context – who does the work, where the work is done, how the work is done, for whom the work is done, etc. Asking and addressing these questions is exactly what processes are intended to do – almost always in response to the fact that this context is not served in existing work conventions.
Though I might appear to be disagreeing with you, it is only in some of the details. I am certain we are like-minded in understanding the strategic, critical nature of good process. I think I am just a bit more skeptical than you. I hope your more optimistic views are correct. I would love to be wrong in my continued assertion that most enterprises neglect this essential discipline.
Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/
8 Context Enriched Business Processes Add a Social Dimension to Work February 4, 2010 at 2:41 pm
[...] My colleague Jim Sinur commented in his blog, “Processes need to wrap themselves around people in way that seems unthinkable today. This will only happen when the processes are context enriched. The process knows who, where and when to be involved with a person or persons in a collaborative and social way in context of conditions, conflicting goals and physical device that happens to be the closest and desired.” See Jim’s complete post: Winds of Change [...]
9 Jim Sinur February 4, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Steve,
We have numbers and plenty of clients telling us they are saving money on processes. Sometimes it’s as simple cutting out unncessary steps. In some highly automated industries, just changing the rules on the processes can bring big benefits. I do agree that contextual processes will have to be approached carefully, but they are the next step for BPM in the leading process minded organizations. The late blomers are still working on savings, visibility and complicance with BPM.
Jim
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11 Martijn Linssen February 5, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Thanks for the response Jim
I read the two links you gave me, both entirely Gartner links
They are both about the “Gartner BPM awards”, while I was expecting some common statistical evidence
It seems to me you invited the entire world to share its enthusiasm with you on BPM, and got 32 responses, of which 2/3 had actual data, half of which seemed positive
Making a long story short: read http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2010/02/rule-1-be-honest-.html. That’s the very near future, and I wonder how “research” like this fits in?
12 Jim Sinur February 6, 2010 at 7:58 pm
We have statisitcal evidence in with our BPM surveys which have detail that we made available to our BPM conference atendees. in the past. Short and sharp; Our clients (hundreds) have experienced 15-20% return on investment in less than a year. The Awards were a small sample, but only a smal percentage of the data we have at Gartner. I would love for you to bring some numbers to the party as well.
You are free to believe what you want.
13 Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist February 9, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Jim, thanks for the reply to my comment. I am extremely encouraged to hear your clients are realizing savings (value) by addressing processes. It brings hope to all of us process-centric folks.
Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist
http://community.ca.com/blogs/theitgovernanceevangelist/
14 Jim Sinur February 9, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Steve,
In the same vein, I have heard of some struggles, but they seem to be the exception. If they become the rule, then there will be bigger issues to discuss.
Jim
15 Marty Grubin February 18, 2010 at 11:05 am
Jim,
I love it “BPM has proven essential in surviving the downturn”, Some of my banking clients have suffered terribly in the downturn; huge financial, reputation and human capital losses. Some on the front page of the WSJ – it hurt to see it. but read on…
In two specific cases, the business units that had years earlier embraced BPM, retained their business value despite the plunging value of their parent bank’s stock price. In one case the parent bank was forced into a merger with a rival bank. Today these organizations have gained in terms of profitability, market share and attracted new talent.
In both cases BPM and process centric thinking had moved from a tactical cost cutting effort to a strategic weapon. In one organization it was termed “Strategic Efficiency” – the ability to quickly adapt and focus resources to new markets, solve problems etc. I have to say that it took about 4-5 years for this evolution to take place.
In my humble opinion BPM does work, but you need vision from top management, persistence from middle management and buyin from the front line employees. It also takes time.
Marty
16 Jim Sinur February 19, 2010 at 3:43 am
Marty,
Thanks for sharing your great story. The real world tells it all. It does require some committment from the right levels to get from tactics to strategic advantage.
Jim