Gartner has quietly announced a change in the way it defines BPM Suites.
Gartner’s Janelle Hill has published the new BPMS specifications in her latest blog
Her announcement states:
“Below is our depiction of the full functionality found in a good BPMS”
And behold, the old BPMS has now changed.
The new 10 technologies required in a BPMS:
- Process execution and state management engine
- Model driven development environment
- Document and content management
- User and group collaboration
- System connectivity
- Business events, BI & BAM
- Inline and offline simulation and optimization
- Business rules management
- System management and administration
- Process component registry/repository
If you compare it to previous BPMS definitions by Gartner (for example in last year’s Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management Suites), you will see two major additions:
1. Document and content management.
2. Inline and offline simulation (instead of just simulation)
Document and content management are usually the domain of ECM vendors.
Including them as part of a BPM Suite is something new.
Is BPM expanding? Does this mean that BPMS will now be required to include ECM?
Adam Deane 
[…] Adam Deane noticed a change in Gartner’s BPMS Definition: If you compare it to previous BPMS definitions by Gartner (for example in last year’s Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management Suites), you will see two major additions: 1. Document and content management. 2. Inline and offline simulation (instead of just simulation) […]
By: Process for the Enterprise » Blog Archive » Gartner has a new BPMS Definition. Next Step: Business Operating System on 28/04/2010
at 1:13 pm
Adam
I’m in similar doubt: it’s not about ECM vendors, it’s about different nature of structured data, unstructured content and processes. If we incorporate content management into BPMS then we should probably do the same with DBMS?
The same concern about collaboration: I’d prefer to have a separate system (e.g. Google Wave) and be able to tie it to processes as well as to projects and be able to use it autonomously, too.
Anatoly
By: Анатолий Белайчук on 28/04/2010
at 3:59 pm
I totally agree with you Anatoly.
I would prefer to have a separate systems with the ability to tie it to processes and being able to use it autonomously.
But, as Scott said: “Because too many people view BPM (or BPMS) as the the future “Business Operating System and rightly or wrongly, that puts a lot of things under the umbrella”.
By: Adam Deane on 28/04/2010
at 5:16 pm