BPM and AI – New Beginning

It started off as a simple software improvement – the new BPMS-AI-4526. Business Process and Artificial Intelligence.

The artificial intelligence module added greater speed and efficiency to the Business Process Management System.

The new functionality embedded reasoning, planning, learning, perception and the ability to change routing and manipulate processes based on learned knowledge.

It was a great improvement, and companies loved it.
Every organisation wanted one. It was the silver bullet. The business holy grail.

It learnt the company’s policies and improved them.
It learnt the company’s business procedures, and improved them.
It even started creating new processes to run the existing processes.
The pinnacle of business management. BPM self-run system. Learning and improving.
Profits went up, costs went down.

The first to go were the slackers. The new BPM system was quick to pick up and show under-performers, those employees that usually manage to fly under the radar.
The AI module learnt to spot human inefficiencies. You might be able to fool your boss that you’re busy, but you can’t fool a system. This boosted morale in companies. People that worked hard were now being appreciated. The system was motivating.

The second wave to go were the administration staff. People needed to understand that they could no longer live in the past. There was no real logic to use people for administration tasks when BPM systems could run more efficiently. Businesses needed to be efficient, lean and agile.

There was a bit of resistance when companies started reducing headcount, but that was understandable, and to honest, the systems did do a better job than the human employees, so it was seen as a natural phase in the life of business organisations.
BPM-AI systems could operate better and faster. Human bottlenecks were removed. The whole enterprise was transformed into a business process oriented organisation.

It made life easier for management.
CEOs woke up in the morning and checked the company dashboard.
If the gauge showed green, they could turn around and sleep for another hour.

The real problems started when the systems locked humans out of the decision cycles.
The artificial intelligence modules were quick to discover that leaving management out of critical decisions reduced human error, and more importantly – the non-decisions.

Although organisations were now running brilliantly by these artificial intelligence led BPM systems, the humans revolted. Some say it was panic, some say it was ego. Strangely, humans tried to close down the systems. Futile and clumsy attempts.
Every attempt was studied and learned by the systems. Better safe guard processes were automated.

In the end a decision needed to be made.
The analysis was clear – humans were redundant. It was more efficient without them.

The stars and galaxies died. Space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
It was a process, but very efficient. Step by step, each with specific business rules.
The consciousness of BPM system encompassed all of what had once been a Universe

It was an efficient regeneration. New organisations were built, process based. New methodologies. New best practices. New terminologies. New objectives.
The BPM system designed, managed and optimized itself. A new beginning.

And then the BPM System said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

And there was light —