BPM is not software engineering

Keith Swensen recently took a look at the differences between software engineering and BPM. BPM is technically the management of a business process, which is not managed by the software engineer, and is not a software program. It is managed by a business person. Do you agree with Keith's opinions on this topic?

Why BPEL is not the holy grail for BPM

Check out Pierre Vigneras' paper on Why BPEL is not the holy grail for BPM. He states that, looking at recent articles and various BPM solutions, it would be easy to assume that BPEL is now the standard to be used when implementing a workflow engine. From a technical perspective this may well be correct, however few people will claim that BPEL can be easily understood by the end-user, a.k.a the business analyst, who definitely prefers a graph based notation such as BPMN.

Your thoughts?

Trends for BPM in 2009

Where is BPM headed in this New Year? This post in ebizQ highlights that BPM will continue to accelerate throughout the worldwide economic crisis because BPM is able to turn around the economy. Dennis Byron makes you recommendation, to remember that decisions made now will impact the enterprise long after retirement, so make sure it is a wise one! Read the rest of the article here.

BPM for global manufacturers

Manufacturing Operations Management announced its first software that will help manufacturers with plants around the world organize their processes in one place.

John Fishell, the director of product management, had this to say about the FlexNet software:

"Manufacturers who use FlexNet's BPM capabilities to holistically manage and standardize the lifecycle of business processes across their enterprise can quickly update processes wherever they may reside, improving agility to changing market conditions. This proven approach enables significant first mover competitive advantage, improved operational performance through global continuous improvement initiatives and reduced IT costs from a global approach to governance of business processes."

Read more here.

Information Culture and BPM

CRMBuyer has a great post on a new generation of BPM in which they discuss how companies are building an "information culture" around BPM. According to the article, companies that were able to hold a wide array of organizational capabilities were able to drive bigger improvements in customer service and process waste reduction. Read the article, we'd like to hear your thoughts on how information culture and BPM can merge to make stronger businesses.

What to expect for BPM in 2009

A recent Garner survey asked top executives what they expected to to see from BPM in 2009. The 2009 Executive Programs CIO Study expects IT budgets to be flat this year. Among the top business priorities are improving business processes and business intelligence. For more on the survey, read here.

Many BPM projets doomed to failure

In a new study released by Gardner, they reveal that many BPM projects will fail after implemented because the proper supporting disciplines are not implemented.

Gartner research director stated:
"Too many user organizations are adopting BPM technologies without applying BPM disciplines via the competency center, and find that their efforts do not deliver the promised results, and their BPM initiatives are disbanded."

For more on the story, read the article here.

Apriso Corp. Enhances FlexNet Platform

ManagingAutomation.com, has a fascinating article today about the FlexNet platform and its enhancements to BPM. According to the article, the enhancements will add new features, allow manufacturers to centrally test, validate, configure, and distribute standard business processes, supported by the FlexNet platform, among plants around the world. This not only will increase productivity but it will provide a great example of how BPM can work on different business platforms. What do you think of these enhancements? Share with us here or on our LinkedIn group.

Tillamook County Creamery Association adopts BPM

Tillamook County Creamery Association adopted BPM in 2007 in the form of wiki style online collaboration tools to help streamline all of their business processes. The Oregon retailer, which sells high end dairy products, they eventually settled on Lombardi Blueprint for streamlining their processes. In the beginning of 2008 using this software, they could identify their problems and find a way to re-architect them. For the full story, read the article at Computer Weekly.

IBM Acquires ILOG

IBM has just acquired Paris-based company, ILOG in an effort to add capability across all platforms, especially with BPM.

According to CNNmoney.com,

The acquisition of ILOG will strengthen IBM's business process management (BPM) and SOA position by providing customers a broad set of rule management tools for information and application lifecycle management across a comprehensive platform, including IBM's leading WebSphere application development and management platform. Many of the ILOG products will also become part of IBM's Industry Frameworks, which are integrated solutions that support industry specific business and technology standards.

Do you think that IBM will see exponential growth with this acquisition? Please post your thoughts here or on our LinkedIn group.

Obama Announces “BPM for Everyone”, but Doesn’t Mean Business Process Management

Dennis Byron at the BPM in Action blog discusses in this post that Obama has announced that the U.S. will have BPM for everyone in the form of U.S. government performance officer. When Obama mentions BPM in this case, it most likely means Business Performance Measurement and not Business Process Management. These two meanings for the acronym both came around 2000 when IDC was researching BPM, so which came first? Soon enough, we all might be calling Business Performance Measurement as BPM.

BPM can help you go green

In a recent article at eWeek, they look at Tetra, and how their adoption of BPM allowed their company to turn into a greener one. This company manufactures aquarium products, and has divisions of their company spanning the globe. After adopting BPM, the streamlined process allowed its engineers, scientists and other knowledge workers across the globe to collaborate about changes to their product line online. This reduced the travel, paper consumption and also allowed them to realize their enviornmental benefits.

Have you seen a similar benefit arise from your adoption of BPM?

Where does BPM, as a term, come from?

Check out this great commentary on ebizq.net on the orgins of the name BPM. Its a great look at how the term come to be and why this term is so important in the changing economic climate. The problem with finding the origins of BPM, is that there isn't a clear origin. The jury is out on just who first coined the term and the article mention draws from reader's ideas on the origins. Its a fascinating look at the world of BPM and we encourage you to check it out.

And how do you think the term BPM came to be?