BPM Quotes of the week

On BPM and Lean Startups – Scott Francis

But the most important similarity between BPM and Lean Startups is the fact that we don’t know the answers up front. We have hypotheses – estimated problems and estimated solutions. The goal of a lean startup (or a BPM initiative) is to iterate until the problem is known, and the solution is known. Some of the traditional approaches just don’t work because the problem isn’t fully known – which is why we always say that incorrect requirements are the biggest risk to your BPM initiative.

On Processes to Start With – Sandy Kemsley

Interestingly, the question about what process to start with always comes up with I give a general BPM presentation; I always recommend starting with something that really matters to the business since, as I’ve stated previously, no one ever justified enterprise-wide deployment of BPM by doing a proof of concept with managing expense reports. I talked to MacKenzie about this at the break and told her that I agreed with this strategy, and she unknowingly echoed my opinion that in the grander scheme of BPM, no one cares about expense reports.

On Workflow Addons – Scott Menter

We are, at least, at a point at which customers are recognizing that the “workflow” add-ons to their systems of record just don’t cut the mustard. You can’t reasonably expect to deploy diverse workflow solutions from Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft, and mash them up to do anything useful. BPM bridges that gap. ERP and CRM and other three-letter suites provide the data that drive processes implemented with BPM. Some systems of record (I’m looking at you, CRM) may even be vulnerable to being supplanted by BPM entirely.

On ACM and Process Plans – Keith Swenson

When talking about an ACM system, and we talk about plans (processes) being made, we are talking about the actual knowledge worker making those plans as they work. The food safety expert has to be the one to make the plan, and has to do it directly. There is no programmer available to “program up” the process because that would increase the overhead, and would cause the safety expert to be less responsive to the emergencies. It really is the knowledge worker who creates the plans.

On Knowledge and Business Process – Chris Taylor

Knowledge is an equal partner of business process. All of the knowledge in the world won’t make something happen; it has to be acted upon…as process. Likewise, all of the process steps in the world without appropriate knowledge are out-of-context activities without direction. Not only have knowledge and process already reunited in many environments, it is a fair statement to say that an environment where knowledge and process are managed separately is quickly becoming outdated and wont be competitive against organizations that empower their people with reunited KM and BPM.

On Ad Hoc Processes – Scott Cleveland

Many pundits push the notion that a lot of business processes are ad hoc and that you can’t manage ad hoc processes within BPM software. I disagree – I have worked with BPM software that allowed me to document and manage ad hoc processes. Our process engineer had been configuring processes for years. Over those years, he had learned how to look at processes in other ways. At a minimum, we would put in rules that allowed a person to add an activity and/or a person within a process step.