Jim SinurIt’s pretty obvious that both topic areas are supposed to make business folks smarter, but is there a fundamental difference? I’d like to start a conversation on this topic. I think there are differences myself just like there a different kinds of synapses, but let’s play with the argument for a while.
![MC900438727[2]](http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/files/2010/07/WindowsLiveWriterProcessIntelligenceandBusinessIntelligen_A3AAMC9004387272_2.jpg)
Process Intelligence(PI) is something new:
Until now, there has been no real interest in looking at the way processes behave and how processes can drive towards key performance indicators(KPIs). BPM has driven this behavior as it matures and focuses on what is happening right now and potentially what is about to happen. When tied with inline modeling, BPM, leveraging PI, can adjust it’s behavior (sometimes with the help of business folks and sometimes semi-automatically) to changing conditions that may inhibit or enhance the attainment of stated KPIs. PI is new and different by leveraging real time events and real time modeling to guide the built-in flexibility BPM can offer.
Process Intelligence is just an extension of Business Intelligence:
Sure BI is focused on data and not necessarily processes, but feed BI event streams and see what happens. BI has been focused in the “rear view mirror” up until recently, but it BI can leverage process data just like any other data. In fact some of these modeling capabilities that are proposed for PI are indeed already emended in some BI offerings today. Predictive analytics for instance. There is nothing new here. Let BI at the events as well and leverage in memory cubes and “It’s all good”
Both are compelling views, but I believe that process context and near real time adjustment adds new dimensions that BI has not considered, but I believe that PI and BI share some common components and behavior.
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Category: BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Optimization Tags: BPM, Business Rules, Optimization
13 responses so far ↓
1 Tweets that mention Process Intelligence and Business Intelligence: Do They Share More than a Word? -- Topsy.com July 21, 2010 at 3:00 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Elise Olding, Jim Sinur. Jim Sinur said: Who is more Intelligent (BI or PI)? http://bit.ly/afqMps #BPM #BRMS #Entarch [...]
2 Jonas Ekstrom July 21, 2010 at 5:21 pm
I’ve seen several BI projects bending over backwards trying to get process related KPIs by ELT’ing meta information from activities in various disconnected systems. Imaging all hours saved if the systems and people involved in a business process could send events to a BPMS that will keep all information needed to get the PI.
3 George July 22, 2010 at 8:46 am
To talk about process intelligence you need to relate it process mining.
While business intelligence (BI) is focused on data, process intelligence (PI) is focused on behaviour, so the nature of questions that can be asked is completely different.
Process mining reveals this behaviour in different perspectives; how is the process behaving? how is the organisational resources behaving, is the process conforming to a specified set of rules?
None of these can be answered by BI!
For example, you can ask questions like; why are we spending so much time on low value goods? or why is the process slow on tuesday? or why is there a bottleneck in this process?
Very different to BI questions.
4 Francis Carden July 22, 2010 at 9:19 am
Despite the extensive capabilities of existing PI software there is a big gap when it comes to measuring the large parts of the process that re relate to user processes. i.e. users “manual” interactions with desktop applications.
Think about it. You have 100′s or 1000′s of users doing what they do best. Running applications to perform their tasks. But what does each user do in that task? Why are some users better than others? Where are the KPI’s here? There is a disconnect because we just don’t have the granular visibility of the that part of PI.
Leaping to our rescue is User Process Monitoring, the ability, in real-time, to automatically monitor what our users do, 24x7x365. My 2 cents.
5 Jim Sinur July 22, 2010 at 10:46 am
Good point George
6 Jim Sinur July 22, 2010 at 10:50 am
Francis,
I think autmated business process disocvery technology(ABPD) can fill part of the gap you rightly point out and be considered a branch in the PI topology of tools. Your point echos Georges point about mining (watching people at the glass can be mined as well). Nice point.
7 Jim Sinur July 22, 2010 at 10:51 am
Jonas,
Thanks for sharing a real world observation
8 Ian Gotts July 25, 2010 at 6:02 pm
You suggest Process Intelligence is new. But some say the future is here, but is unevenly distributed.
So we have clients who are very process mature and the concepts you are talking about are embedded in teh way they work.
But it does require that you have a control over your processes as a pre-requisite. So control I mean documented, adopted, version controlled and an actively managed process change cycle.
And that’s the rub. Very few organisations are even to this level. 80% use Visio/Powerpoint/Excel so they can be discounted immediately.
9 Jim Sinur July 25, 2010 at 8:38 pm
I never implied it was new, but the sweet spot of the process market is more focused on it. That is pretty new.
10 Tweets that mention Process Intelligence and Business Intelligence: Do They Share More than a Word? -- Topsy.com July 26, 2010 at 8:57 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ian gotts and Frank Arndt, Patricia Bramhall. Patricia Bramhall said: RT @iangotts: Process Intelligence – new thing or here today? http://bit.ly/dm4Y4z @gartner @jimsinur #bpm [...]
11 Matt Green July 27, 2010 at 8:08 am
Hi Jim,
You raise a good question here. I think that George said it best … “BI is focused on data, process intelligence (PI) is focused on behavior.” I see it the same way. This leads me to wonder about the definition of Process Intelligence. You seem to imply that PI is nothing more than applying continuous query techniques on top of BI, but I think that this does not really capture what PI is doing. After all, we have had that technology around for along time and we called it Business Activity Monitoring. BAM technologies are very often tied closely to a process (either modeled or not), monitor events as they pass through a process, and store historical data for later analysis. The BAM system will then leverage the historically normalized data to compare it to the real-time data to understand and alert on behavioral anomalies. This sounds a lot like process intelligence.
So what is Process Intelligence then? In BPM For Dummies (http://www.softwareag.com/corporate/res/books/pi/default.asp) the authors say that PI is enabled through technologies and practices that are the culmination and evolution of tools like Business Intelligence (BI), Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), Complex Event Processing (CEP) and Process Discovery, combined with analytical methods like Six Sigma, and enabled through Business Process Management (BPM) solutions. In PI solutions, the technologies are seamlessly integrated, rapidly deployed, and easy to use, leading to dramatic improvements in business performance. It is the combination and seamless integration of these technologies and methodologies that set PI apart from any single product family. I see this as an evolution of these technologies rather than an extension of any single product.
This market is evolving quickly and I think that the differentiators among the various products will be how well integrated they are and how easy they are to use. As an industry we have not done a great job of empowering the business users to use any of the core products that make up PI. It is a rare business user that will open up a BI development tool to define dashboards and reports. That skill is relegated to the experts in the IT department. In order for PI to see widespread use it will need to adopt interaction paradigms that cater to the business user. I expect to see PI vendors apply social interaction technologies, mobile support, and suggestive technologies to meet the business user where he works in a way that he can understand. The end user should not know if he is using BI, BAM, CEP, Six Sigma, etc. The data should “just be there” for him.
So I think that the answer to your question is that PI is new. Yes, it has its legacy in older technologies but it is a new technology. I would propose that PI is as close to BI as the platypus is to the duck…they may both have a similar beak but the quack is very different.
12 Lindsey Harmon July 27, 2010 at 5:15 pm
Great post, Jim. I really like your ideas about the different “intellegent” types. We have a community for IM professionals (www.openmethodology.org) that discusses related topics and we have bookmarked this post for our users. Looking forward to reading more of your work and sharing with our community.
13 Jim Sinur July 28, 2010 at 8:56 am
Thanks Lindsey