SOA - Service Orientation Applied

I think the main reason why process modeling stimulates a lot of excitement, while complete BPM lifecycle gets less emphasis is due to the fact that process models are tangible artifacts that both business and IT can very much relate to and the gains can be quickly realized; while on the other hand, implementing complete BPM solution can be quite overwhelming and the value realization has much longer gestation period.

Process Modeling is definitely a very critical phase of building the BPM solution, however the full value from BPM is realized when the business is able to manage the performance of business processes.

Implementing a BPM solution involves externalization of business process flow logic and frequently changing business rules (such as tax computation, discounting policy, credit approval rules etc) from cryptic computer code into language that business users can understand. This enables business users or semi-technical personnel to quickly change the process flow and business rules to adapt to the changing market needs, making the systems agile.

Another very critical aspect of a BPM solution is Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), which includes systems & infrastructure that enables monitoring and analyzing business performance. This provides critical insights into the real impediments in business performance and providing vital clues for optimizing business processes.

Implementing the complete BPM lifecycle - from process discovery & modeling to business activity monitoring, analysis & optimization – enables the enterprise to continuously optimize their business performance.

Most of the CTOs, Enterprise Architects and IT Managers that I have had the opportunity to collaborate with share the above views. But the real challenge is how a large enterprise should plan their BPM journey that encompasses the complete BPM lifecycle from modeling to monitoring. From my experiences I have learnt following lessons that make implementing the complete BPM lifecycle less intimidating.

1. Don’t try to boil the ocean – start with very few simple but high impact business processes

2. Clearly define business measures and key performance indicators (KPIs), and set realistic improvement targets - Setting business performance improvement targets sets the focus firmly on performance monitoring and optimization (which requires implementing complete BPM lifecycle) rather than only focus on Process modeling & white boarding exercise that very often leads into intellectual deliberations that far from business reality

3. Don’t try to solve the puzzle during process analysis, wait for the real business performance analysis – One of the key value propositions of BPM is that it makes the systems agile and very easy to change. Don’t aim to completely optimize the business processes during process analysis & modeling phase. During this phase just look for the obvious pitfalls and improvement opportunities and move forward. Since BPM systems are very ease to change let the processes evolve and mature through the real process improvement feedbacks that come from business activity monitoring & analysis. I have seen many BPM projects getting caught into the ‘analysis – paralysis syndrome’, leading to enormous delays and budget escalations which most often results in key stakeholders loosing interest and  creating beliefs that BPM is one more big hollow promise of the IT industry.

4. Choosing the right tools & technologies – It’s extremely important to conduct extensive research while choosing the BPM suite. Many of the leading and widely used BPM tools are yet not fully matured on all aspects of BPM lifecycle. In fact only few BPM products have good process monitoring capabilities. Many BPM products leverage other partners’ products to cover some of the BPM lifecycle stages, including even process execution and integration engines. Such hybrid BPM suites have serious limitations in interoperability and roundtrip even between the tools within the suite. Also many of the BPM products are built on proprietary standards severely limiting the interoperability with other reporting & analysis tools and other IT systems within the enterprise. Thus selecting right BPM suite is very critical for implementing enterprise wide BPM solution that encompasses complete BPM lifecycle

5. Establish BPM governance and process owners’ office at very early stage – Many of the large BPM initiatives involve processes that are cross departmental / business functions. Implementing process management solution for such processes requires clarity on ownership. Establishing BPM governance, especially process owners, is very critical in successfully implementing and managing cross departmental processes

6. Collective ownership of Business & IT – In most organizations the BPM projects are initiated and owned solely by IT, with very little participation from business. From my experience I have learnt that if IT owns BPM projects they are often heavily focused on ‘best architecture’ and system performance (e.g. trying to reduce function latency time from 0.8 seconds to 0.2 seconds), rather than focus on building system that enables continuous improvement in business performance. Similarly, the BPM projects that are completely owned by business often tend to focus too much on improving at very early stage the business processes and user interfaces and interaction patterns, losing sight on the real goal of putting in place the infrastructure that enables continuous feedback loop for business performance improvement. It’s imortant that BPM initiatives are jointly owned by business & IT. Establishing clearly defined BPM Governance framework ensures clarity of roles & responsibilities of all stakeholders