The Process Executive

At the recent Australian BPM Round table session I did a quick survey of participants to see, amongst other things, what BPM Frameworks are being used in Australian organisations?

I was not surprised by the result, however it is interesting that out of 20 organisations there was not 1 recognised BPM Framework that had been adopted; and comments were even made that they are not necessary. I think this last comment related to the terminology being used.

I have recently added a new page to the Executive Guide to BPM explaining what a BPM Framework is and why they are needed. See the Process of Process Management. For me, implementing BPM is implementing a Business Process and therefore you need a guide on how you are doing it!

What BPM Frameworks are there?

The challenge is finding and evaluating a Framework. There are three main sources;

1. Books
2. Training
3. Vendors

I was introduced to my first Framework by Roger Burlton of the Process Renewal Group. The Process Renewal Group Framework is based on Roger’s book, Business Process Management: Profiting From Process; however the best understanding of the Framework and the techniques to implement it came from attending Roger’s training course and being mentored by the Group.

There are other Frameworks that come from similar sources, and consequently I have not had the opportunity to review any of them, I just know that they exist from web research. Frameworks from BPMInstitute.org and Management By Process are examples of training / consultant led offerings.

Another option is to adopt the processes recommended by your BPMS vendor. The advantage of this option is that the framework is tailored to the tools you have available. This can also be a disadvantage if you do not already use the tool as the training seems to be inherently linked, even if the framework is generically good. An example of this may be the framework promoted by Appian.

There may be some more generic options, such as the Association of Business Process Management Professionals (ABPMP) Common Body of Knowledge. As I am not a member I have not reviewed this framework; however there is a good summary presentation available, see Guide to BPM CBOK.

The Round Table also attempted to develop a common methodology which was called The Process of Process Improvement (TPPI). The output of the exercise can be found on the BPM-Collaboration TPPI Wiki (registration is required).

At the moment I am evaluating the BPTrends methodology that is based on the book Business Process Change by Paul Harmon. This methodology is supported in Australian by Leonardo Consulting who have written an excellent summary of the methodology and the certification program that they offer; see Achieving Process-Based Management.

I am sure there are many BPM Framework offerings that I have not covered here. If you know of one or you have a framework or methodology to offer – please leave a comment to let me know. I am also keen to collect or create reviews of the Frameworks that are available.

What Framework are you using or considering?

Most Business Analysts have a reasonable idea about how to develop a Business Process. We don’t all do it the same way (far from it), however the general approach is usually much the same, it goes something like this…

1. Gather requirements from the business
2. Design and validate a process model
3. Implement the new process with the business
4. Move on ..

What will this look like in the world of Process 2.0?

I recently asked the BPM Collaboration community about Process and Google Wave (check out the forum thread to follow the discussion). Bernie Clark provided me with a link to a great YouTube video prepared by the SAP Research centre, it is titled “Gravity, the best example of Google Wave”. This is well worth 7 minutes. Well done to the research team for a quality presentation.

Using this kind of collaborative process development, the Business Analyst becomes more of a facilitator and educator about the way to build processes, without needing to get too involved in the business. With this kind of approach, an organisation would be capable of developing and deploying Business Processes in record time!

Add to this, adhoc process modelling. This concept, introduced to me as a new feature in the webMethods 8 product suite, provides the ability for knowledge workers to model processes as they are being executed. Generally there is marginal value in mapping a complex process that is not executed regularly, especially where human judgment is involved!

However, if you can capture the process as it is completed, then you can measure what has been done and learn from the experience in the future.

My first reaction to adhoc processes was, “It is hard enough to get people to map processes and execute them, what incentives would be needed to encourage adhoc mapping?”.

What if we mixed both collaborative and adhoc process modelling?

After my recent hiatus I am planning a comeback!  I had not been involved in the BPM community over the last few months as I had heavy work commitments, that were not really BPM related (it was more like being a Systems Analyst).

However I have recently said goodbye to BHPBilliton to take up a BPM Consultant role at APA Group. This means that I will be back to thinking process. The better for you!

During the last few months I found it very difficult to keep track of all the different BPM postings across the internet. Jamie at BPM Collaboration had a great idea to create a page that displayed a summary of BPM blog sites; however you have to open his page directly to read it. I was looking for an aggregated source that could be accessed easily during my day, on the train, on my phone!

So I created BPMBlogs. BPMBlogs is a Twitter account that provides a summary of BPM blogs postings. You can follow this account on Twitter and see what is being posted to the BPM Blog space as part your regular reading.

You can also access the combined BPM Blogs as a Yahoo Pipes Feed, if you want to read the entries directly or import the feed into your own RSS reader.

Check it out!  It is still a work in progress, so let me know what you think – What sites should I add to the list?

note: I did have to remove some sites that I originally wanted to add as their RSS feeds were not compatible with Yahoo Pipes!