More from an ASG Software Solutions article...
BPM has been misunderstood as, or confused with, business process improvement technologies such as automation, orchestration, integration and management. However it is much more than a technology or application. BPM is a concept, a practice and, above all, a management discipline grounded in changing human behavior. BPM analysts use interview, observation, and analysis techniques and methodologies to identify, understand and modernize business processes to make them more agile and efficient. ...technology is not the ultimate goal or driver of BPM.
Peter Drucker described a common mistake of most process optimization initiatives: 'There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.' Simply applying technology to automate or expedite a process that is poorly constructed to begin with will only lead to faster and more automated inefficiency.
My Thoughts...
I concur with their observation...
They went on to say - 'it would be idealistic to think that organizations can create the perfect process on the first attempt.'
For years, I have been cautioning companies not to set a goal of 'perfection'. Assuming that you could actually define perfect, by the time you were to implement your 'perfectly' improved process things will have changed - it will no longer be perfect.
Managing your business processes is an ongoing activity. Change is constant - People leave their jobs, people are transferred and new people are hired. The business environment changes - Compare doing business today with 10 years ago. If you are committed to managing your business processes, it will be an ongoing activity.
As Peter Drucker said: Efficiency is doing things right; Effectiveness is doing the right things. Start by: Removing non-value added activities from your processes; Making sure that you perform the right activities in the right way; And, don't forget to improve your customer touch points.
What does Efficiency & Effectiveness get you? More efficient business processes will lower costs and leads to increased revenues, and improved customer relationships. It can differentiate you from your competitors. It can be the key that allows your company to break out as the market leader.
Your Thoughts...
What steps has your company taken to be a market leader?
We can monitor / analyze events in order to introspect business process patterns. We can execute processes to use processes as feed sources for analysis and dashboard displays. We can perform work flow diagrams to let end users control it. We can manage events in order to monitor processes across the value chain.