Michael Blechar

The main path for applications development and deployment has historically been the business analyst (frequently residing in IT) getting requirements for some build or buy project and running it through the development or implementation process with limited collaboration until the application solution is ready to be tested and deployed. But the times they are a’changing. Increasingly, the non-IT operating units are taking on the responsibility for defining the business architecture and business process analysts reporting directly to the business units are more proactively working with developers and package implementers to assure the right solution gets implemented. But this is only the tip of the iceberg….

New business process management suites – technologies which allow the business analyst and users to design and implement applications using assembly of software and data services and workflow automation of processes – is creating a whole new path for applications development and deployment. This, of course, significantly impacts both the application and data architectures and requires increased collaboration and coordination between IT and the business units – involving people, process and technology.

As I mentioned in my last post on “Building Greater IT Collaboration With The Business Units”, a good place to start in fortifying these relationships is on enterprise business process improvement (BPI) initiatives, since they require greater collaboration among business users, enterprise and business process architects, and analysts and their counterparts in IT to be successful. These roles are supported by technologies – including business process management suites, BPMSs, that are part of an enterprise BPI reference architecture (see A Reference Architecture for Collaborative Enterprise Business Process Improvement Technologies*). These technologies must be bridged to be effective (for example business modeling tools and IT modeling and requirements management tools).

For more information on BPMSs I recommend reading the research notes below written by my colleagues in the business process management team*.

-Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management Suites
-Selection Criteria Details for BPMSs, 2009
-Using the BPM Four Corners Framework to Evaluate a Vendor’s BPMS Strategy
-Signs That a BPMS Vendor is Following One or More Technology Evolutionary Paths
-Using the Four Corners Framework for BPM and BPM Usage Scenarios to Select BPM Consulting Vendors
-Gartner Evaluates Microsoft’s BPM Strategy and Partner BPMS Products
-Gartner Evaluates Oracle’s BPM Strategy and BPMS Product
-Gartner Evaluates SAP’s BPM Strategy and BPMS Product

*Available to Gartner clients or for a fee

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