I love innovation.
A month ago I blogged about the future technology of BPM
“Voice Recognition – Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
It turns out that the future is closer than I thought…
The little elves at Signavio have been quietly working their magic.
They have been developing an easy and intuitive way to create BPMN diagrams using speech recognition technology.
The end users can describe their business process in plain English and the Signavio Process Editor will create a valid BPMN 2.0 flowchart in real-time.
Being able to describe process models in natural language is a big step forward for BPM users. The ability to create a model through speech and see it visualized takes business process modeling to the next level
It is inspiring to see the younger generation in the industry pushing the technology boundaries and looking for creative ways to push BPM forward.
Hopefully, this will make process process modeling more accessible to an even larger audience… except for the Scottish..
Adam Deane 
Hi Adam, looks cool but really isn’t. We can do the same thing for real-world rules and commands in the ACM case using any kind of speech recognition software. I am not impressed.
Flow-diagrams are utterly useless to do actual work and if the BPM analyst can’t type maybe he should do something else. I do not see any point in a voice interface to a graphical representation. It is way to difficult to select context for commands. Imagine you have a large flow-diagram and need to edit it? Kind of like a flow-diagram tool for a mobile phone …
What is the future of voice?
The voice interface is needed for the business performer and not for the designer. The only place this makes sense is in an ACM environment and not for BPM. The flow diagram is not the process and that has been the whole problem ever since. How do they use voice to describe the data and interfaces, the forms, the content, complex rules and so on?
Typical marketing hype …
By: Max J. Pucher on 07/08/2012
at 8:12 am
I completely agree with Max, so I would say:
Hi Adam, looks cool but really isn’t. We can do the same thing for real-world rules and commands in the ACM case using any kind of speech recognition software. I am not impressed.
Flow-diagrams are utterly useless to do actual work and if the BPM analyst can’t type maybe he should do something else. I do not see any point in a voice interface to a graphical representation. It is way to difficult to select context for commands. Imagine you have a large flow-diagram and need to edit it? Kind of like a flow-diagram tool for a mobile phone …
What is the future of voice?
The voice interface is needed for the business performer and not for the designer. The only place this makes sense is in an ACM environment and not for BPM. The flow diagram is not the process and that has been the whole problem ever since. How do they use voice to describe the data and interfaces, the forms, the content, complex rules and so on?
Typical marketing hype …
By: Emiel Kelly on 07/08/2012
at 6:52 pm
Sorry Max, I really don’t think the ACM v BPM debate comes into this at all….
I agree with you though…. completely useless as a design tool, possibly useful for the business performer regardless of whether they’re using an ACM or BPM solution… data needs to be entered and in some cases this may be easier via voice.
Can’t agree with comments like….
“The only place this makes sense is in an ACM environment and not for BPM”
By: Mark Foster on 08/08/2012
at 7:08 am
Hi Mark, there is no ACM versus BPM debate. ACM is the future of BPM. I just don’T always remember to write ‘orthodox BPMS’ rather than BPM (which can mean software or methodology).
My point is: If you need experts to design processes up front as you do with ‘orthodox BPMS’ then the benefit of voice defined processes is doubtful. I have used voice recognition for some time to write new text but I always go back to edit manually. The same is true here.
The main problem with interpreting voice commands is CONTEXT!
I see benefits for the business performer if he can create his processes in an adaptive manner. ‘Add Task with contract 4711 for customer number 0815 and delegate to legal’ seems like a sensible input IN THE CONTEXT of a current case. Voice entry needs and ontology of terms and data elements that is verified against the context and a rule/command semantic. We do that in our NLR function. Our User-trained Agent makes such suggestions by adding ‘Would you like to’ in front and the answer could simply be ‘YES’.
We could setup a NLR semantic to define the flow-diagram as shown here, but there is no benefit for us as we recommend that processes should not be flow-controlled. This is where the use of this is more in an ACM-user-interaction context than in a design-BPMS-flow-diagram context.
I hope that this is understandable. Regards, Max
By: Max J. Pucher on 08/08/2012
at 8:07 am
“Who would use this tool ?”
“People who can’t see”….
By: Mark Foster on 08/08/2012
at 7:38 am
There’s nothing wrong with my Scottish accent. I challenge Signavio lol
By: bpmredux on 13/08/2012
at 10:07 am
http://bpmredux.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/why-bpm-needs-a-siri-interface-natural-language-execution-and-modeling/
“Why BPM needs a ‘Siri’ interface – natural language execution and modeling” – Posted in October ’11.
By: bpmredux on 13/08/2012
at 10:09 am
I think that the future of voice-based BPM will be driven by tools pushing the boundaries and finding good ways for users to actually utilize them.
By the way, this feature is also available in the fee and open-source jBPM web designer – http://surdilovic.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/jbpm-designer-leading-ideas-in-web-based-bpm/
By: tsurdilovic on 15/09/2012
at 1:08 am