Jim Sinur

Jim Sinur
Research VP
2 years at Gartner
42 years IT industry

Jim Sinur is a vice president in Gartner Research after a short stint with a BPM vendor. Prior to that, Mr. Sinur was with Gartner 15 years and helped establish the BPI/BPM areas at Gartner and is considered a thought leader. His research and areas… Read Full Bio

What Kind of Gear is Needed for Social BPM?

by Jim Sinur | July 21, 2011 | 5 Comments

At one time in my life, I was an accomplished climber working my way up from being poor and only being able to free climb(no money for equipment). Then one day I saw what happened to a climber who had little equipment (a helmet, a rope, a climbing belt and a figure eight rope device). He had too much slack in the rope and fell from an overhang and slammed into the face below (the rope held thankfully). His injuries were too numerous to recite here, but suffice it to say I was going to have better gear and processes the next time I climbed.

The same can be said for gear needed for Social BPM. I’d like to start a discussion on helpful technology gears needed/desired for Social BPM. I’ll start with seven that seem to make sense to me and you can add more, if the spirit moves you to comment.

A Goal Seeking and Unstructured Process Engine:

While significant benefits can be had by having standard and structured processes, there is additional opportunity for knowledge workers by dealing with unstructured work. In order to handle dynamic event and goal driven processes; an adaptive engine is necessary See http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/11/16/goal-driven-processes-the-future-target-of-bpm/ and http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/05/20/can-people-change-as-fast-as-bpm-allows/

Enhanced Process Context and Presence:

While operating full processes is the history of BPM to date, there is an expectation that processes will be made of of process snippets and these process pieces will understand the context they are operating in at any given moment. The same would be true of all the process participants including operators and managers. See http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/09/16/tapping-into-collective-knowledge-will-drive-unstructured-process-activity/ and http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/11/11/with-unified-communications-emerging-can-follow-me-processes-be-far-off/

A Guided Role Based Work Environment:

While it’s easy to build processes that require all participants to learn the process and it’s inherent work environment, I envision role based workbenches that give guidance at all times. This guidance will be context sensitive and proactive in nature. For managers, it may be a suggestion of a tolerance change. see http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/10/12/the-drum-beat-for-bpm-usability-continues/

A Mobile Experience:

While not always necessary, mobile access to a process experience is becoming popular. Even if your workers are not on the road 24 * 7, many work at home or in various and dynamic locations. See http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/08/16/top-five-ways-to-sneak-up-on-bpm/

Community Links with Social Network Analysis:

Without access to either internal and/or external communities, the collaboration is limited to connected workers and highly paid resources. Allowing certified stringers is a way to expand your knowledge pool. By watching the way your people collaborate will help identify better practices. See http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/09/16/tapping-into-collective-knowledge-will-drive-unstructured-process-activity/ and http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/02/19/tapping-into-better-practices-by-watching-knowledge-workers/

Pattern Sensing:

You may be looking for opportunities or threats in your business on a day to day basis. Either way looking at context, events and people behavior will give clues as to appropriate and time to market responses. See http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/11/02/capturing-tribal-knowledge-a-big-challenge/ and http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/01/13/decisions-the-under-served-and-under-supported-partner-to-forward-progress/

Constraint Based Optimization:

The real fear of dynamic and social processes is feeling of a loss of control. While this is somewhat true there are coping mechanisms. One is adding constraints that keep people and processes from doing illegal, unwise and sub-optimal activities. The other is by adding intelligence through optimization routines like predictive analysis, simulation and resource optimization. See http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/12/01/dont-get-stuck-with-bad-policyrule-management/ and http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/07/28/process-intelligence-is-about-operational-action/

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Category: Applications BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Cloud EA Green IT Governance Optimization Simulation Social Strategic Planning Tags: BPM, Business Rules, Green, Optimization, Simulation, Social

Social BPM Requires Balance and Flexibility

by Jim Sinur | July 10, 2011 | 6 Comments

The problem with IT folks defining the next generation of the BPM discipline, is that IT folks come with technology and architectures biases. The process folks want to process model the world, data and content folks want all the data and states predefined, the rules folks want to define all the logic ahead of time and the events folks want to look for events they deem interesting beforehand. The application math formulas to static data by the business intelligence folks requires a fragile environment. What’s wrong with this picture. None of these approaches are balanced and none are flexible by nature.

Social BPM will require a flexible and integrated approach to these four facets. Dynamic BPM technology is the process answer to the next generation of BPM but that’s not good enough alone. Adjustable content management is the content/data answer to the next generation of BPM, but that’s not good enough alone. Boundary constraints is the policy/rule answer to the next generation of BPM, but that’s not good enough alone. Complex events management is the event answer to the next generation of BPM, but that’s not good enough alone. Real time BI that leverages in-flight data is the BI answer, but that is not good enough alone. Are you catching a pattern here? Flexing each individual approach is good but falls short of the goal.

Net-Net:

The intelligent application of all of these approaches will be necessary going forward. Biases will have to be left at the door and the intelligent inclusion of all of these aspects to tie human and machine interaction in the next generation of BPM technologies and disciplines will be the way of the future.

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Category: BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Optimization Simulation Social Strategic Planning Virtualization Tags: BPM, Business Rules, Optimization, Simulation, Social

Social BPM is Design by Doing: Really?

by Jim Sinur | July 4, 2011 | 11 Comments

A number of folks think Social BPM is adding some nice interfaces with social software only. It can be far more than that when it comes to sourcing knowledge and dynamically evolving a process for more desirable outcomes. Social BPM includes more factors than we realize. http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/05/02/design-by-doing-an-extension-to-bpm-behavior/

Design by Doing Involves Sensible Collaboration :

As BPM matures it will have to reach to groups of knowledge workers that can easily work together for the common good of process outcomes, improving processes and recognizing unexpected patterns of behavior in processes plus participating constituents(clients, partners, employees etc.). Enabling good feedback mechanisms and encouraging “early warnings”. will be behavior that will be encouraged, going forward. http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/06/02/bpm-enables-people/

Design by Doing Involves the Right Amount of Structure:

In a world where dynamics are the norm and rapid response is an expectation, BPM will have to move to more dynamic forms of behavior and design patterns. Many folks are convinced that processes have to be pre-designed and tweaked for few exceptions. While this is healthy cost containment and standard product/service thinking, this is not good enough for the expectations of today’s constituents. http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2010/07/07/got-social-processes/

Design by Doing Involves New Sources for Innovation:

Sourcing will be different for BPM, going forward. Today all the resources are known, but as BPM moves to service the knowledge workers, your organization may not have the full knowledge (at worst) and/or enough skilled knowledge workers to keep up with the demand. I believe the extension of processes outside of employed resources to knowledge pools and constituents will help create better and dynamic processes. http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/09/16/tapping-into-collective-knowledge-will-drive-unstructured-process-activity/

Design by doing means never stopping the improvement process, considering factors and resources outside the norm. It also means that watching what is happening is crucial to decisions in and about our evolving processes. http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/06/26/watching-the-process-edge-is-a-productive-activity/

11 Comments »

Category: Applications BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Cloud EA ERP Green IT Governance Optimization Social Strategic Planning Virtualization Tags: BPM, Business Rules, Green, Optimization

Watching the Process Edge is a Productive Activity

by Jim Sinur | June 26, 2011 | 1 Comment

While most believe that there are opportunities and problems at the edge of processes, few organizations have really taken advantage of watching the edge of processes. This is where organizations can find out how to manage resources effectively while staying on track with expected business outcomes including happy customers, partners and employees.

See: http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/06/13/process-opportunities-are-around-the-edges/ and http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/06/19/resolving-process-conflicts-at-the-edge/

Watching Logs:

Most active processes are performed on process technologies that have activity logs that can watch people and/or system resources. These logs are great sources for analysis of process/exception behaviors. Some of these logs might need to aggregated and mined for process optimization.

Watching Value Chain Interactions:

Most processes participate in contexts that are bigger than the scope of the process itself. Processes also can participate in multiple contexts. Watching these processes in the context of multiple value chains that imply different policies and constraints can yield better practices.

Watching Social Interactions:

Processes that are enabled by either dynamic process model driven or case management technologies often include people that may or may not be considered normal resources for a process. If additional knowledge is need to complete the process/case, other connections are quite often utilized. These can be other people and/or knowledge/information pools. Watching the dynamics is a great source for expanding the process, adding resources and giving better directions for success.

Watching Events:

While most event patterns are expected and rules can be established for recognizing acceptable event patterns, events (ignored or not) are great resources for process expansion/optimization. Sometimes unexpected combinations of events can run processes to sub-optimal behavior.

Watching Emerging Patterns:

There are any number of sources to watch for process behavior, the real secret sauce is to find patterns that make sense to pursue. One might have to add some analytics to these multiple sources of process activity. Adding intelligence to these sources adds to management options for processes and supporting systems.

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Resolving Process Conflicts at the Edge

by Jim Sinur | June 19, 2011 | 1 Comment

While processes have proven that they save money and time, they also introduce challenges at the boundaries where they interact with other processes, applications and people roles. See for processes at the edge. http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/06/13/process-opportunities-are-around-the-edges/ It can be a real bear to resolve goal and role conflicts between processes, people and organizations.

Processes should be more about “we” than “me”:

Processes do make things more repeatable plus efficient and are great at coordinating resources within their respective scopes. The challenge, however, is that process designers have a hard time envisioning the full contexts in which these processes are likely to “run in” and spend little time thinking about process to process resolution. Now it is not reasonable to predict every potential interaction, context and reaction, but more thought should be aimed at anticipating the base interactions.

Watching Patterns of interactions can give clues:

Some managers like to implement and evolve, but the really smart ones anticipate likely interactions for the major friction points and let the rest evolve. This is why discovering patterns of behavior and interaction is so important. This is particularly helpful where there is no structure for some behaviors. One can use automatic business process discovery and social network analysis for some of these patterns.

Net-Net:

If organizations really want to include/combine processes in bigger “end to end” processes like value and supply chains to service business networks, they need to get better at this emerging issue.

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Category: Applications BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Cloud EA ERP Green Optimization Simulation Social Strategic Planning Virtualization Tags: BPM, Business Process Improvement, Business Rules, Green, Optimization

Process Opportunities Are Around the Edges

by Jim Sinur | June 13, 2011 | Comments Off

It seems to me with all the new emphasis on fueling business growth, while managing resources in a holistic manner, processes should have some new opportunities to partake in creating growth and becoming a strategic investment. BPM has proven itself as a cost cutter and is working to help on resource optimization to date.

Processes at the Edge:

What seems to be obvious, to me, is that process activity can contribute to business growth. This could be fueled by new processes around revenue opportunities or just delighting potential and existing clients to get them and keep them happy (post trauma surveys really are too late). It will take some innovative thinking to increase the workforce productivity, particularly at the revenue generating end of the business, but the results will get noticed as a business accomplishment for BPM. The caveat here is there will also be issues of undoing harmful arbitrary cost- cutting efforts in recent years. For instance, not allowing prospect meals over a certain amount for sales professionals. It might be better to help with better prospecting and qualification than arbitrary growth inhibiting policies.

Processes on the Edge:

There is nothing more frustrating to a client are that processes optimize for their specific scope and ignore the fact that they are dependent on the outcomes of other processes and may have to flex. Recently I have had to deal with hospitals where I found processes that had no visibility to me as a client and no anticipation for the kind of collaboration necessary to resolve conflicting outcomes effectively. For example I was told, by my primary physician, that I could go home at 7:00 AM that morning. Because each contributing doctor had his/her own process as well as each role in the hospital(nursing, room utilization managers, pharmacy, logistics and release management) and these processes produced conflicting outcomes and time lines, I was not released for another 34 hours. The reason that it was that soon is that I kept asking for progress on an hourly basis otherwise; who knows?

Net-Net:

The problems and opportunities are at the edge of processes and how they interact with context and client satisfaction. There are great opportunities surrounding the edge of processes and how they touch revenue opportunities, clients and other processes. This is new to a number of process architects and designers and will drive more intelligent and visible processes that are context aware

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Category: BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules EA Optimization Simulation Social Strategic Planning Tags: BPM, business, Business Rules, Optimization

A message from David McCoy

by David McCoy | January 18, 2011 | Comments Off

Jim is taking a short hiatus from blogging and will be “radio silent” through March 31 as he addresses other topics.

Do check back on April 1.

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Top 5 BPM Impacts for the Next Decade

by Jim Sinur | January 3, 2011 | 8 Comments

Over the holiday period, I was thinking back to the contributions that BPM has had over the last decade. I was pretty impressed with the savings and quality processes I heard about in the past years. I thought it would be good to start a discussion on the expectations for BPM for the next decade and decided to take a shot at predicting the impact of BPM for the next ten years. What will the next ten years bring for those that embrace BPM?

Here is my list of the Top 5 for the next ten years:

1. BPM will Continue to Deliver Savings:

BPM, with very little investment, can deliver savings. It matters little if you start with modeling or measurement, but the savings are usually there. It seems the more you invest, the more you get with the right guidance and skill sets. Many organizations have been successful with BPM and I expect more of the same.

2. BPM will Appeal to New Audiences:

As leading organizations show the benefits flow from BPM, more organizations are attracted to BPM. With the advent of BPM in the cloud, the popularity of Visio and/or SharePoint, the popularity of jump start templates on popular/leading BPM providers, open source-like BPM providers and the promotion of BPM by power vendors, BPM is attracting new audiences. Medium to small businesses are starting to kick the tires of BPM.

3. BPM will Deliver Better Workforce Management

With the advent process intelligence that give visual and descriptive analytics and the inclusion of proven analytics providing advice via prescriptive analytics, one can expect BPM to help leverage and extend our businesses workforce. I expect BPM to reach to knowledge workers and outside the traditional boundaries of companies into value chains.

4. BPM will Deliver High Quality Processes

Because of the visibility and the culture of process improvement that BPM brings, the expectation that process will be used to improve quality is a realistic expectation. BPM combined with process intelligence can be used to move from best practices of today to the evolving best practices of tomorrow. Because of the dynamic features of many BPM technologies, real time governance and improvement are possible.

5. BPM Will Help With New Business Innovation

Businesses are finding new ways to leverage dynamic and adaptable processes that can shift to meet changing needs and demands while staying profitable. Some organizations are using BPM to assist their public image in the collective and/or with their constituents including customers. I really look forward to watch this emerge going forward.

BPM is about to kick into a new phase this coming decade and I feel privileged to have a front row seat. What are your thoughts now that I have shared mine?

8 Comments »

Category: Applications BPM Business Process Improvement Business Rules Cloud Optimization Social Tags: BPM, Business Rules, Optimization, Process Improvement, Process Management, Social

Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings

by Jim Sinur | December 23, 2010 | 1 Comment

It’s a special time of year for the Sinur family (Jim, Sherry and little Maggie Mae). While our children are quite dispersed, we get to see a few of them around Christmas. It is really special to celebrate and relax in the peace represented by Christmas and the excitement of a new year. We hope you have a special holiday as well.

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Category: BPM Tags: BPM

2010: A Year in Review for Me

by Jim Sinur | December 20, 2010 | Comments Off

I just can’t believe another Zodiac has gone around and how busy 2010 was in terms of activity. BPM continues to be on a great growth path and has extended to be expected activity at a good number of organizations. Process Intelligence and Social BPM is taking root and business rules have come out of the shadows. I see the activity level even higher in 2011 and eating into my weekend creative time Here are my top highlights for 2010.