IT Directions

The latest Workflow Management Coalition Handbook, on Social BPM, will be published soon - you can pre-order here.

From the intro by Layna Fischer:

Business Process Management and Workflow are, by their very nature, social activities. The collaboration and communication patterns that are now increasingly referred to as "social computing" were also fundamental to the BPM and workflow models of the early 1990s. Yet it has been the recent explosion of social computing and accompanying success of social production, from Linux to Wikipedia, and Facebook to Twitter, which has the most dramatic impact collaboration in business environments.

Today we see the transformation of both the look and feel of BPM technologies along the lines of social media, as well as the increasing adoption of social tools and techniques democratizing process development and design. It is along these two trend lines; the evolution of system interfaces and the increased engagement of stakeholders in process improvement, that Social BPM has taken shape.

This book brings you thoughtful and insightful viewpoints from experts worldwide on Social BPM and the role it can play in your own organization.

I haven't seen any of the text except my own chapter (on Change Management Processes) so can't comment on the contents.  However, the book looks like an interesting read if you are interested in new developments in BPM/workflow - and has interesting contributions such as Keith Swenson's contrast of the Newtonian and Quantum approaches to process analysis. My own chapter includes a related comparison of process description/execution approaches based on workflow, (adaptive) case management and HIM.