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How to unlock mobile with business process management

Blog: Colin Crofts - Business Process Improvement

Time and again, I’ve seen mobile proofs of concept that are full of “sizzle” to attract and excite business users, but they end up not being delivered due to a lack of back-end capabilities to support them. For example, I’ve seen mobile concepts that deliver in-context information to police officers in operational environments, something that would greatly enhance their ability to apprehend suspicious characters. This idea was sound, but the mobile app never got delivered because the back-end process capability to support it didn’t exist. These situations often leave business users disappointed when they realize their shiny prototype is as hollow as the cereal box robots we built as kids.

Is “fail early, fail often” to blame?

Many developers of mobile applications born on the cloud rightly point to the mantra “fail early, fail often” as the reason for the large number of mobile ideas that never see the light of production. It’s a motto born in the technology hub of Silicon Valley that encourages risk-taking and recognizes the inevitability of some failures along the road to success. But does it also lead IT professionals to dream up too many unconsidered ideas that never come to fruition?

What if we look beyond “fail early, fail often”? What if there is a practical approach that you can follow to increase the odds of getting your ideas to production? Read on.

Business process management can unlock the potential of your mobile applications

Gartner defines BPM as follows:

Business process management (BPM) is the discipline of managing processes (rather than tasks) as the means for improving business performance outcomes and operational agility. Processes span organizational boundaries, linking together people, information flows, systems and other assets to create and deliver value to customers and constituents.

So what does that have to do with the exciting world of mobile? Everything!

The formal definition of BPM is a bit conservative and dull, so allow me to rephrase it. BPM is about disrupting what a user does, breaking down boundaries in an organization and giving you the launching pad to drastically change your business. Now that’s starting to sound more like the promise of mobile.

Philosophically then, business process management and mobile both have the goal of disrupting the way users go about their daily activities. These capabilities both aim to improve the enterprise and therefore complete one another. For example, pushing a mobile notification of a crime in progress to a federal officer in the vicinity illustrates how mobile brings the power of context to BPM and how that could drive decisions and next best actions in unique ways.

Philosophical alignment is good; now let’s get practical

Theory is all well and good, but I did allude to some practical considerations of why you should combine BPM with your mobile applications. I believe these benefits of BPM will increase your success in the world of “fail early, fail often.”

Seven advantages of business process management for mobile

BPM can support a true multichannel experience. Mobile is not the only channel, and the ability to move your mobile interactions seamlessly between channels is a major benefit.
A good BPM platform will accelerate mobile prototyping with a graphical approach to defining the process, allowing you to focus on the user experience of the front end.
Support for playback sessions is built into mature BPM platforms, including rapid UI development. Playback sessions are common practices in the process improvement world and typically help with business buy-in.
Good BPM platforms include ready-to-use dashboards that highlight the effectiveness of business transformation that your mobile applications provide. They also provide the business with operational insight.
Mobile applications do not live in isolation, and eventually the business will want to see what the back-office capability is to support your mobile application. These processes could be something as simple as applying for a service or more complex case management capabilities.
BPM provides an easy hook into analytics that enables the powerful “detect, decide, act” model.
Building end-to-end process into the application components is an anti-pattern that will improve your ability to respond to changes.

I urge you to think about what BPM can do for your business when you have your next great mobile idea. Combining the worlds of mobile and BPM can help your mobile application to be more than just a shiny toy.