BPM in Action

I found this article very interesting as we had this same discussion here at Interactive Intelligence. Recently we announced a new product called Interaction Process Automation (IPA) that, as Dennis described here, is the technology that actually automates the business processes. (http://www.inin.com/ProductSolutions/Pages/Interaction-Process-Automation.aspx)

For months up to our announcement, we tossed around the acronyms of BPA and BPM to describe our offering and settled on BPA because we felt that it was best in describing the technology that we offered with IPA.

So, what I would love to know, Dennis, what do you think? I'd love to get your thoughts.

Tim Passios
Director, Solutions Marketing
Interactive Intelligence, Inc.

I wonder if BPM has become more popular because many solutions don't support much in the way of automation so some companies are leery of the "automation" part of BPA.

It seems like customers should be evaluating solutions based on their ability to automate AND manage processes, not just one or the other.

Rick Chin
Interactive Intelligence

To debate efficiently, I would start from definitions of three different concepts under BPM "umbrella" (see also http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2009/04/should-we-consider-third-forgotten-bpm.html)

BPM discipline, noun
discipline which allows you to model, automate, execute, control, measure and optimise the flow of business activities that span the enterprise’s systems, employees, customers and partners within and beyond the enterprise boundaries

Remark: At present, the BPM discipline is the best way to implement process-centric enterprises.

BPM system, noun
portfolio of the business processes as well as the practices and tools for governing the design, execution and evolution of this portfolio

Remark: Any process-centric enterprise has its own enterprise BPM system. The enterprise BPM system may not be perfect (e.g. some processes may be only documented on paper, some details are only “located” only in the minds of certain people, etc.), but it does exist.

BPM suite, noun
coherent set of software tools for facilitating the implementation of a BPM system

So, in accordance with these definitions, business process automation (BPA) is an integral part of the BPM discipline. We practice BPA within enterprise BPM-systems with the help of BPM suites.

Thanks,
AS

Hi Dennis

Great summary and analysis of the debate! Here’s some personal history on this. At Gartner in 1999/2000, I made the switch from talking about workflow-brokers (a term coined by Regina Casonato) as the next generation of ‘process engine’ and riffed on a term that Roy Schulte and the application integration team (which I managed) used. They had written one big tome that included a tiny section with the term “Business Process MANAGERS.” This was used to define a class of emerging software that correlated to Vitria’s Business Process Automation term. I took the “MANAGER” term and morphed it to Business Process Management, certainly not claiming to be the first to do that. However, I do lay claim to describing how the workflow and application integration worlds would merge to create BPM capabilities and how those legacy markets would transform. I went around the world a few times with that message and it played out exactly as expected.

At the time (2000), I refused to talk about a single BPM market, as BPM was also emerging as a feature (or layer) of ERP, CRM, application servers, etc. I even wrote a research note in December of 2000 called “Business Process Management: The Hot Non-Market.” I was right in 2000, but over time, I relented to market forces (ironically) and we began talking of the “BPM market” under Jim Sinur’s leadership of BPM. I had passed the baton to him as I was deep in working with Roy to drive BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) into the market. That term, of course, is all Roy’s.

Now, we at Gartner talk of BPM as a management discipline, BPMT (T for technology) as the software component of that market, and BPMS (Business Process Management Suite) as the leading example of BPMT. The world has changed a lot since the days when I was trying to explain that BPM was NOT Business Process MODELING. But in the process (ha!), I think we as an industry have muddled some of our terms. BPM is best described as a discipline, even more so than CRM, etc. So with that shift, I think we will see more linguistic confusion, even if a lot of it is academic hand wringing.

Net, net. I support your assertion that the market will define the term. Been there, and accepted that before :> In 1999/2000 the market was trying to digest terms such as E-process, E-workflow, and as I used to say, EGADS! However, as we move BPM more and more to mean the discipline, then using BPM to also mean a class of technology is more problematic. Since BPA (automation) was hanging around with nothing to do, I was wondering if there was any linguistic power to use it, hence the call for debate. But even there we are vexed! BPA also means Business Process ANALYSIS. So we have more overloading than a bad programming language.

Thanks for taking this up and who knows where it will go. What I do know is that I was with a client who was struggling with BPM work. When I determined that they were really just talking the automation portion of the puzzle, their efforts became a lot clearer to them and to me. BPM is a rather broad term. We may have to live with that at this point, but that is why I started the debate.

Cheers!