Forget watching Survivor or Lost -- the current drama unfolding in the world of business process management (BPM) is much more exciting. Here's the current storyline I'm hearing from process leaders: "My budget for BPM has been cut, but the demand for BPM is accelerating." Sounds like a good reality series, right?

Recently, I spoke with a former colleague leading a multi-year, multi-million dollar BPM initiative. Our conversation highlighted the challenges and demands facing BPM leaders during the current recession. He pointed out that 50 percent of the project staff had been cut, although very little of the original project plan had been modified. In fact, the company is debating cut backs on other development initiatives to meet demand for BPM projects -- in other words, possibly scaling back custom Java-based solutions in favor of BPM.

This trend of budget cuts and increased demand is borne out in a recent Lean BPM Trends online survey Forrester conducted. Preliminary results show that 54 percent of respondents reported either a moderate or significant decrease in their BPM project budgets; only 1 percent reported an increase in their BPM project budget.

So, how can BPM initiatives continue to thrive in the face of shrinking budgets and increasing demand?

Well, first take a deep sigh of relief. Look around -- not many other projects or technologies are enjoying the same level of support from the executive team. Understand that today's CFO and CEO understand process and see BPM as a key cost-containment weapon for fighting through tough times.

Second, develop a plan to proactively attack common BPM budget busters that could land your project on the CFO chopping block. We'll be talking about this concept in more detail at our IT Forum in May, but in particular, there are three budget busters that you should attack immediately:

• Break consensus log jams. BPM teams often become bogged down in analysis paralysis, particularly on projects that bring together competing voices from different departments and lines of business. Building consensus on cross-departmental projects is a major budget buster when stakeholders can't see eye-to-eye on solution requirements. In order to break consensus log jams on enterprise-level projects, BPM teams should consider using a new breed of BPM tools called "process wikis" that improve collaboration and accelerate buy-in during discovery. Lombardi Blueprint and Software AG AlignSpace represent good examples of process wikis that can help break consensus log jams.
• Reevaluate BPM roles and responsibilities. Mismatched roles are a common and costly budget-buster on BPM projects. Most notable is the role mismatch for business analysts assigned to lead process discovery. As the first phase of a BPM project, process discovery often sets the tone and pace of the entire project. If the wrong person, or personality type, is leading discovery, the impact will be felt across all phases of the project -- and most importantly on the project timeline and budget. Eliminate this budget-buster by recruiting and promoting business analysts that have a passion for process. Business analysts that eat, sleep, and breath process are better equipped to keep everyone focused on the business process during process discovery. These business analysts usually come from a line of business but have developed a solid working relationship with IT and have a decent understanding of technology and standards.
• Banish waterfall mindset. The waterfall approach emphasizes defining all requirements upfront and locking them down throughout development. In the current economic downturn, BPM teams cannot afford the rigid phases of waterfall. BPM teams are now being pushed to deliver value in shorter time frames without a promise of follow-on funding -- as one customer shared with me, "budgets don't last forever." Many teams are adopting agile and lean mindsets when it comes to implementing BPM. This means prioritizing process features, time-boxing development, and releasing fully functional components across multiple development iterations. This approach minimizes the risk that stakeholders will reject your final solution. It also eliminates requirements confusion early in the project.

How will this saga play out? If BPM teams take proactive steps to trim costs, executives will continue to see process improvement as a worthy investment that can yield solid ROI even in a down economy. However, if teams are not able to reign in costs, then get ready for the big axe of the chief financial officer.

-1-

Explore Our Topics

• BPM & Enterprise Architecture
• BPM Standards
• BPM Implementation
• BPM Best Practices
• Continuous Process Improvement
• BPM Governance
• Service Governance

• Business to Business (B2B)
• BPM for Supply Chain
• BPM for Customer Management
• BPM for Financial Services
• BPM for Healthcare & Insurance
• BPM for Government

• Business Activity Monitoring
• Event Processing
• Process Intelligence
• Business Rules Management
• Decision Management
• Operational Intelligence

• Workflow Automation
• BPM & Enterprise 2.0
• BPM & Web 2.0
• BPM & ECM
• Case Management
• Collaboration
• Enterprise Portals
• Social BPM

• BPM & Cloud Integration
• BPM Analysis & Optimization
• Business Process Simulation
• Process Visibility & Monitoring
• Process Orchestration
• Process Discovery
• Process Modeling

Home
Webinars
Blogs
ebizQ Forum
All Topics
Subscriptions
White Papers
Analyst Corner
Follow us on Twitter
Fan us on Facebook

Explore Our Topics

BPM Strategy
BPM Solutions
Event Processing Strategy
Content-Centric & Collaborative BPM
Process-Centric BPM

About Us
Editorial Submissions
Feedback
FAQ
Advertise With Us
Site Map
Privacy Policy
Unsubscribe