The Insider's Guide to Next-Generation BPM
By Zygmunt Jackowski, PhD, BPM Specialist, Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural Afffairs , 04/16/2006
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A ferry named “Enterprise”
Let me begin with the following (not-so) fictional story: IT and Business
camps have been co-operating from the opposite banks of the same river for
decades. They make a decent living by ferrying customers from one side to
the other by co-owned ferry that they have aptly named ‘Enterprise’. Even
though the ferry looks pretty modern and is described on the enterprise
Web-site as ‘customer oriented’ it doesn’t take a consulting guru to
envisage what benefits would be delivered to both the customers and the
service providers if only both camps managed to design and build a decent
bridge across the river. In fact why such a bridge hasn’t been built yet is
murky waters for many industry visionaries not mentioning scores of bridge
and enterprise architects.
In recent years the pressure has mounted even higher as many inconvenienced customers have got a hold of Enterprise ownership (which is now publicly listed) and simply demand it to provide them with yet higher dividends by designing and building what they don’t even call a bridge any more – but an integrated super-system connecting all aspects of the re-designed Enterprise and the World beyond while maintaining client-centric approach. Still, a good ferryman who understands what’s going on at both sides of the river and knows how to get through the currents is in higher demand than ever before.
Reality Check
Steering back to reality – there have been numerous attempts to achieve
business-IT alignment in the course of the so called end-to-end development
methodologies, but none of them really succeeded. Using our metaphor they
have brought about friendly hand-waving of campers on the two opposite
river banks with none of them really inclined to pay a visit to the others.
In recent years the focus of the discussion has moved to more of the
paradigm shift with each side (this time represented by BPM and SOA teams)
claiming that they are better positioned to manage the required change.
I will approach the problem posed in the title by asking two auxiliary
questions:
My answer to both of the questions above is ‘No’ and I will describe the reasons for that below. This means that without discrediting all the advantages that BPM/SOA approach brings with it (a list of which one can find on BPM/SOA Web-site of their choice) we are still not any closer to resolving the issue of bridging business-IT divide and I will provide main reasons for it in the last part of the article.
About the Author
Dr Zygmunt Jackowski is a System Innovation Staff Member of DIMA (Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) with several years of international experience in IT industry. He specializes in methodology and architecture disciplines as perceived from both business and IT perspectives. His research and publications include Extreme System Analysis, Agile Business Process Modelling and Enterprise Architecture. You can contact him at zygmunt.jackowski@immi.gov.au.
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