process management service oriented architecture soa blog posts

Business Process Management: Easier said than done

Regular readers of this blog will know I've been conducting and writing about an extensive field research into business process management (BPM). Before we started this field research, all we could hear about BPM in the industry was great news! Universal acclaim abounded for this BPM thing from Vendors, journalists and indeed analysts ...

"... good reasons for adopting BPM: BPM is an ROI winner; BPM works; BPM is about standardizing business processes; BPM complements many other enterprise software initiatives; BPM can be fun." - Ann All, IT Business Edge, reporting Joerg Heistermann, US CEO of IDS Scheer

"…many larger companies are appreciating the direct business value of BPM projects" – Stefan Reid, Forrester Senior Analyst

"The wedding of BPM and SOA was forecast for a number of years. These days it appears the marriage is working." - Colleen Frye, SearchSOA.com

With this kind of hype in the air, we were skeptical and wanted to find out the true situation. Nobody talks much about the challenges of getting value from BPM. We didn't know anyone experiencing this kind of ROI.

So, what did we do? We talked to people leading BPM initiatives. Open-ended discussions with 35 business and IT leaders representing 21 organizations revealed complex and subtly differing opinions on BPM.

What did we find? The core finding statement of the study is:

BPM is valuable and it does deliver measurable return, but organizations are not getting this return from BPM because:

•They do not understand BPM
•They are too focused on BPM infrastructure
•They are succeeding with tactical projects
•They struggle with culture change required

Join me (Burton Group subscription required) for a 60 minute webinar at the following times in May to discuss the field research process, the 12 key findings that underpin this statement, and their implications for your BPM program:

Tuesday, May 4, 2010
2:00 p.m. EDT/11:00 a.m. PDT/18:00 UTC GMT/20:00 CEST

Wednesday, May 5, 2010
9:00 a.m. EDT/6:00 a.m. PDT/13:00 UTC GMT/15:00 CEST

You can register (clients only) for the TeleBriefing here.

If you are not a Burton Group client, or if you cannot attend either sessions, I’ll also be sharing the findings at our Catalyst User conferences: in Prague 21-24 June, and in San Diego in 26-30 July.

Stories from the BPM trenches
Six BPMs and the elephant
What do the prices of exotic vegetables say about your BPM initiative?