We were in the technology room now — with its already subtly antiquated equipment, untouched for the last ten years.
But even ten years, technologically speaking, meant so much.

Compare BPM systems now with the type of BPM systems they must have had back in 2025. But then, advances in BPM must have seemed tremendous.

Powell touched the dusty server with his finger. The air of disuse that touched everything about the room — and the entire station — was infinitely depressing.

I looked at Powell helplessly and quietly said: “I tried to contact him by mobile phone, but it was no good. Mobile doesn’t work on this side of Mercury — not past two miles.
That’s one of the reasons the First Expedition failed. And we can’t put up the simulation equipment for weeks yet”

We both looked at the process map. The employee had been going around in circles for hours.
But why was he going around in circles!? I just could not understand!
He had only a couple of tasks to do, and I had double checked that they had been entered into the BPM system correctly.

Powell: Look, let’s start with the three fundamental rules of BPM — the three rules that are built most deeply into the BPM system’s positronic brain.”

“We have: One, the system must not waste an employee’s time, or through inaction, allow an employee’s time to be wasted.”
“Right!” I confirmed.

“Two,” continued Powell, “the system must obey the orders given to it by the employee except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.”
“Right” I confirmed.

“And three, the system must ensure the employee’s tasks are always prioritised as long as such prioritization does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.”
I looked at Powell. “Right! Now where are we?”

Powell: “Well remember the tweaks they did to the BPM system when we got this mission to Mercury.”

I looked at him with surprise. “Oh, yes. They weakened the Second Law to ensure that employees on remote stations don’t tell the system to stop allocating task, which will enable them to start slacking. But I still don’t see the problem. Why would the system send the employee round in circles?”

Powell: “What were the tasks you fed the system?”
I answered: “Simple tasks really… One was to fill out an RFI for a customer. The other was to create a mockup demo for another customer. None of the tasks was urgent. Important tasks maybe, but not urgent.”

Powell: “Ok, let’s look at it from the system’s point of view.
An RFI is more important. This might generate revenue. Therefore priority one.
The mockup is priority two.”

Powell stopped for a moment and then continued: “But what happens if the employee starts to fill in the RFI, and finds out that he is missing some crucial information that he only can get from the CFO, for example.”

“The system will then change the priority of the RFI to priority two.”

“But what if the employee starts building the demo, and gets stuck because he doesn’t have all the information he needs to complete it.”

“The system will then change the priority of the demo to priority two.”

“That looks like what has happened. The system has been flipping the task priorities back and forth. The poor employee has been going around in circles.”

“Ahh! Whats the solution?” I gasped. We had only 2 hours to save this mission.

Powell: “We need to strengthen Law Two and allow employees to set the system’s priorities by themselves.”

We rushed to the system. I quickly raised permissions whilst Powell informed the employee of the changes.

Employee: At long last! Now listen here BPM system! Do you hear me!!!

BPM system: Yes master!

Employee: My turn to cause pain. I’m going to give you a simple question.
Think about it and tell me the answer. ready?

BPM system: Yes master!

Employee: Prioritisation works nicely in BPM – Is the answer to this question no?

Phones require their own native BPM application. Writing native applications feels counter-intuitive but it’s our only alternative given the constraints and limitations for mobile computing.

On Social BPM – Brian Reale

So, now what happens when you take a concept clearly defined and created by a young, ultra-mobile, and ultra-individualistic group such as Gen Y, and you apply it to the ultimate expression of enterprise (i.e. corporate) software? Can they fit together? After all, Social is the ultimate expression of Gen Y taking technology and molding it to its own wants and needs. BPM is exactly the opposite. BPM is about making people fit into a predefined world of process.

On Process and Metrics – Jon G Ryder

How can one ever know if a process is working without smart metrics? Or put another way, how can one know if the mechanisms one has put in place to achieve the business goals and objectives are moving us in the right direction, as effectively and efficiently as possible?

On EA and BPM – Sandra Moran

An organization that learns to leverage the synergy between EA and BPM will be able to more effectively prioritize projects based on this higher level context for change and therefore, identify which projects have the greatest ability to help the organization execute against its strategy

On BPM Challenges – Scott Cleveland

Implementing BPM software is the easy part of your project – gathering the requirements is difficult. If you have selected the process you wish to manage and you have documented that process [gathered all of the requirements], configuring/coding up the solution isn’t hard.

On the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge, but Goldilocks wasn’t interested in the porridge, nor the IKEA chairs, nor the beds.

She went straight up to the computer room.
“This server’s security system is too hard!” she exclaimed.

So she checked out Mummy Bear’s server.
“This server is too slow,” she said.

Then she checked out the Baby Bear server.
“Ahhh, this server is just right,” she said happily and she started installing the software on it.

After she’d finished installing she decided to wait for the three bears, so she walked into an empty boardroom, put her feet up and started checking out her emails.

Just as she got to the last email, the three bears came home.

“Nobody’s been eating my porridge,” growled the Papa Bear.

“Nobody’s touched my porridge either” said the Mama bear. “What? My cooking is not good enough for them?”

“The chairs and beds are ok, but there is a light blinking on one of the servers!” reported Baby Bear.

The three bears rushed into the server room, but it was too late.
The software had already been installed. Another silo of information in the organisation.
“Confound it! That’s the seventh BPM system we’ve purchased” growled the Papa bear. “Why can’t the business users work with just one system?”. I’ll process their backside with my foot if they bypass us again!

Goldilocks got such a fright that she jumped up and ran all the way back to her office.

“Another consultant that we probably won’t hear from again” growled Papa bear.

“She should have tasted the porridge before she left” mumbled Mama bear.
I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with my cooking…

As useful as business process management has been in helping companies improve and streamline their internal processes, I think it holds even more promise as a way for them to perform the same kind of magic on their customer-facing processes.

On BPM and Custom Applications – Evan McDonnell

Most insurers invested heavily in custom designed applications to systematize their processes. This proved to be a good path, at first. But the high cost of maintenance has turned those custom applications into money pits. Worse yet, their lack of flexibility is stifling innovation, preventing insurance providers from rapidly adapting to market changes, and making them easy targets for competitors.

On BPM and ROI – Chris Taylor

With lots of cynicism around ROI calculations, selling a change without being able to get specific about the benefits and cost is very hard. “We’re going to do things better” isn’t a very convincing argument. Quantifying things that don’t have cost savings or market capture dollars attached is very hard, and BPM needs to be more than reduced cost.

On BPM and Compliance – Anthony Murphy

I often think that being a Compliance officer is very similar to providing an IT service provider, in that senior people only want to talk to you when something goes wrong. Within IT and the wider business a considerable amount of effort is spent measuring and proving compliance with stated business processes, regulatory and legislative rules, and client instructions.

On Social and Analytics in Processes – Connie Moore

Very few BPM practitioners understand how to use analytical tools like next best action, and very few data pros understand business processes. The biggest challenge isn’t to extend social and analytics for process execution; that can be done. The challenge is to find people who know how to put data and process together. Once you tackle the skills and add social and analytics to process automation, the insights you gain about your customers, products, and competitors and factor into your processes could expand exponentially.

On BPM and Change – Jaisundar

Much the same way, I like to think employees really do not have a fundamental disagreement to the reasons why they need that ‘change’ that is being introduced – that new software, those process changes, those revised roles and responsibilities, those new user interfaces. It may not be any of those at all. It may really be that ‘jarring’ effect of stepping out of one comfort zone into a new zone that they need to warm up to all over again.

One of my colleagues brought in his daughter to the office as part of the “What does dad do” school project.

You know the feeling you get when your whole career is scrutinized and turned upside down by a thirteen year old?

Think about a whole TV crew coming in to film you. Worse.
… “so basically you sit and drink coffee all day”…. well…. basically…. yes

Now we work in software. Glamorise it as much as you want. We sit around clicking at keyboards and drinking coffee.

I remember when I was a kid and went to my Dad’s workplace.
I was taken around the chocolate factory for a tour. Lucky me. That day a tonne chocolate cube arrived and I was “allowed” to break a chunk of chocolate off.
That memory of me walking around a factory with a great chunk of chocolate in my hand has stuck with me since.

How do you explain BPM? I still found it quite a challenge.
After years in the BPM industry I still find it hard to explain what is it that I do.
I’m not talking about defining BPM. A thirteen year old doesn’t understand high level blabbering like holistic, assets, agile or efficiency. And unlike grown-ups they aren’t afraid to tell you that it sounds like hogwash,

So how do you explain BPM to a thirteen year old?

Doc: There’s nothing wrong with it.

Yossarian: Do me a favor Doc, look at it once, will you?

Doc: Yossarian, the process is OK.

Yossarian: Please, don’t say that. We need it improved.

Doc: Don’t start that again.

Yossarian: Start what?

Doc: You can only improve a process that can be improved.

Yossarian: How do I know if it can be improved?

Doc: You can’t

Yossarian: I can’t?

Doc: Only after improving a process, can you know for certain that it could have been improved.

Yossarian: What about simulation? I could use simulation.

Doc: Simulation is useless unless you know what you’re looking for.

Yossarian: What am I looking for?

Doc: A process to improve.

Yossarian: That’s all I gotta do?

Doc: Yes.

Yossarian: And then you I can improve it?

Doc: No. Then you cannot improve it.

Yossarian: Why not?

Doc: There’s a catch.

Yossarian: A catch?

Doc: You can’t improve a process that can’t be improved.

Yossarian: Let me see if I got this straight. In order to improve a process, it’s got to need improving, and I can’t know it needs improving, unless I improve it.

Doc: You’ve got it! That’s the catch.

Yossarian: That’s some catch, that catch.

Doc: It’s the best there is!

The research shows that over the next five years, a new generation of processes designed from the outside in will replace the heavy packaged apps designed from the inside out that drive customer interaction today. I call these “tamed processes” to contrast with the hundreds of “untamed” processes that lurk in the shadows and dark corners of the more dominant packaged and industry-specific applications and struggle to cope with searching, filing, and entering data and cross-department human and organizational issues

On BPM and ACM – Scott Francis

When people have trouble listing which products are ACM, and which are BPM, and which are both, the “ACM” tag has some work to do to eclipse BPM. Even as it grows, it is perceived as part of BPM, not separate. Of course, BPM took a decade or more to come into its own. I don’t think it comes undone overnight.

On BPM and Process Mining – Anne Rozinat

I would counter by saying that process mining is more useful in flexible environments than for completely controlled BPM systems. One can learn a lot more because the actual process is invisible and emerges on the go. By observing what is happening, you can identify best practices and things that go wrong

On BPM and As-Is Process – Scott Cleveland

if you thought you could come up with the ‘perfect’ process – I guarantee that by the time you implement it, you will find new ways to improve it. So, the search for perfection is a wasted effort.

BPM projects rarely grow larger that a couple of business processes that provide a solution for a specific business pain.
BPM as a business process management platform across the enterprise has still not been widely adopted.

Most customer BPM requirements remain very basic.
The functionality provided by BPM software vendors in the market is more than enough for most customers (in fact some customer implementations require you to dumb down the solution, as not to scare the end users with over-sophistication)

It takes time for an organisation to get to the level of BPM maturity that enables you to bring in the bigger guns.

Complex Event Processing (CEP) is about identifying an issue caused by multiple process events, analysing its impact, and kicking off a new process to resolve the issue.

CEP identifies events and trends that require immediate attention that would otherwise go unnoticed in the structured world of BPM.
CEP uses a number of techniques: event-pattern detection, relationship detection, business rule detection, and uses real-time data to correlate against historical data.

Now, this all might sound like Case management or ACM,
but instead of enabling the end-user to dynamically route a process,
CEP enables the system to generate a subsequent process instance.

Take for example a cable TV call centre:
BPM would be used for structured processes, like customer credit approval.
ACM would be used for unstructured processes, like customer service complaints.
CEP would be used to find irregularities in the processes, like an escalation when multiple service complaints are raised from one neighbourhood.

CEP fits organisations with mature BPM programmes already up and running.
An organisation new to BPM would find it hard to see so far down the line.
CEP is currently embraced only by a couple of BPM vendors.
Unlike other areas (like ECM and ACM) that BPM has moved into, CEP is still an undiscovered territory.

It’s not me that said it…

Gartner have coined a new acronym: iBPMS
(Intelligent Business Process Management)
It seems that BPM Suites have now evolved into Intelligent BPM Suites

Now, not every BPMS can be defined as an intelligent BPMS. You need to embed BPM with event processing, real-time operational intelligence, CEP, BAM, message-oriented middleware and cloud messaging, otherwise you’re a dumb-dumb.

I’m unfairly poking fun at Gartner. The intent behind the new acronym is to emphasize the usage of more sophisticated BPM scenarios that can be used.

The problem with IBPMS is that most of the vendors focus on new customers.
New customers usually mean new BPM programmes, basics, keeping it simple.
There are not a lot of customers with mature BPM programs running.
(Take the usage of BPM simulation, for example. Most of the customers are not yet mature enough for simulation.)

Complex Event Processing (CEP) is about identifying the most meaningful events within the process events, analysing their impact, and kicking off a new process to resolve the issue.
CEP fits organisations with mature business process management platforms running.
A company new to BPM will find it hard to see so far down the line.

So, if you thought you were just good looking and have a great sense of humour, it turns out that you are also incredibly intelligent.
But you probably knew that already…

So to the prediction: I think we already have a few BPM/dynamic case management (DCM) platforms that can do NBA on the fly; so the next step, which I expect to see in 2012, is to see this predictive capability dynamically combined with process mining technologies. These platforms will also need to leverage complex event processing (CEP) and social technologies to really make them usable. Of course, all of that needs to be delivered in a compelling and accessible package.

On BPM and the Olympics – Paul Lewis

It therefore leaves me to ponder why so many organizations today overlook simple business process applications which feature alerts, validations and notifications to solve their problems.

On BPM and Intelligent Business Operations (IBO) – Jim Sinur

I expect to see the advent of more IBO supported by an intelligent business process management suite(iBPMS) starting with leading edge organizations and eventually permeating many organizations over time. This is a real change for organizations attempting to leverage intelligent, agile and responsive processes.

On ACM – Deb Miller

When taking on new business policies, ACM provides the all-important balance between automating out manual inefficiencies that lead to frustrating customer experiences and using technology to improve the service provided by humans, all the while assuring transparency and adherence to regulatory requirements.