Gartner BPM Conference - Opening Keynote Observations

Tuesday morning, 2/5 was the official kick-off for the Gartner BPM Conference.  I'm sitting here as a Business Rules vendor, checking out how Gartner views operational decisions within business process (and the business rules that model/describe those decisions).

Observation from Gartner: BPM is in the top three of the CIO's agenda.  Key question: Is this BPM as a conceptual methodology for understanding, measuring and optimizing how work moves through the organization, or is BPM a technology to automate business process?

Keynote by Janelle Hill

Summary NOTE: As a Business Rules vendor, I didn't like Janelle's failure to discuss operational decisions within process.  Understanding and optimizing how work moves is critical, but BPM moves work between operational decisions (up to 70% of the process activities).  But taking a step back as a business manager for over 25 years I believe Janelle's presentation was probably at the right level to help organization move into a sophisticated shift in how business is organized and implemented.

JH discussed 5 Stage BP Maturity Model - Poster Available, Diagnostic tools which assesses an organization maturity.  Key Question: How does Gartner deal with operational decision understanding and maturity.  I'll look into that.

Key points from JH Keynote;

• Processes are a key component of how an organization delivers value to customers and partners.  Again, what is the definition of process?
• Started by indicating that process improvement has been a topic since the 20's.  Lot's of different handles - TQM, BPR.  Meta elements are Scientific mgmt, computer automation, best practices through packages applications, to Flexible and Adaptive process.
• In economic slowdown, process improvement is still a critical element in cutting costs today and preparing for the upturn later.
• Janelle does separate BPM as a management discipline from as a technology foundation.  Her presentation followed these two different ideas. 
• JH observed that software is being seen as an inhibitors of process and business agility.  I thought I heard JH indicate this is a recent observation from industry.  My personal experience is that this has been a trend since I started in MIS way back when. 
• Organizations are starting to move from intact processes within an organization to cross-boundary process management.  Cross function and even cross companies (process networks).   I find this to be an interesting observation.  I'm interested in knowing how nascent or broad based this is in industry.  I'd assume pretty nascent.
• Moving to a knowledge based economy and the focus on people are moving center stage in the coordination of process.
• People Empowerment moves center stage - Process of Me, Process of We.
• The benefits of BPM compound over time.  The first benefit wave is around Productivity and Efficiency, the second wave is about Visibility (end to end perspective on contribution, costs, bottlenecks, etc.), and finally Innovation (based on visibility, opens opportunities to change and innovate).
  • Interesting observation on visibility - a Canadian insurance organization, once they had visibility realized that 70% of the data the collected as a part of the claims process was never used.
• Why Technology Matters...
  • Make process explicit - free it from underlying technology
  • Enable business driven change.  NOTE: JH discusses this in broad terms with clear focus on the process workflow changes (execution flow).  Our observations is that execution flow does not change as often as decisions (Business Rules) within the process.
  • Visibility - Get immediate feedback in context of process
  • Process + KPI forms the foundation for information based improvement
• BPM stack (UI, Workflow, Middleware, Rules, Data).
  • BPM suite vendors - Relatively new players focused on this stack.
  • Middleware Vendors - Particularly integration focused (TIBCO, etc.)
  • Application Vendors - Building this stack into their applications
• JH showed a very busy map of players coming at this problem from different angles.  Corticon showed up along side of ILOG and Fair Isaac as the key players in the Business Rules Management Suite space.  
• Gartner continues to position business rules as a component of BPM.  Another blog here - I believe this is wrong.  Operational decisions are not Context, they are CORE!
• KEY POINT: BPM is facilitated by technology, but is much more about the organization.  Enlighten, Organize and Train, Recruit, etc.
• Key Organization Shift - Movement from a functionally driven organization to a process driven organization.
• A significant number of her final recommendations were management, organization and organizational change discipline focused
  • Business: Governance framework, BP analyst to work on each major end-to-end process, BPM competency center, experience person to head this center, establish real-time management culture
  • IT: IT enables BPM, IT is not the leader.  Look for entry points to bring in BPM (e.g. corporate governance, application integration, compliance, etc.).  Prepare groundwork (SOA, BPM, Rules and Repositories)
• JH Concluded with Value of BPM
  • Cost/Efficiency
  • Time/Adaptability
  • Risk/Compliance
  • Revenue/Innovation

For another great discussion on this opening keynote, check out Sandy Kemsley's blog post

Comments

[pvhaley]

Just to reinforce some of your editorial observations...

1) "software is being seen as an inhibitors of process and business agility" - yes, but the problem is not software itself but the need for programming. Technology that dramatically reduces the need for programming per change cycle, including rules expressed in more accessible metaphors than if-then, such as yours (Corticon's) and natural language, are critical.

2) "what is the definition of process" - this is a key issue that is missing not only among business rule vendors but also in the semantic web / ontology space where even just events, not to mention process, lacks consensus let alone definition.

3) "moving to a knowledge based economy" - this is happening VERY SLOWLY. The whole BRMS/BPM/CEP market seems to be missing the need to separate semantics and knowledge from expression as rule or flowchart. The encouragement of top analysts to manage vocabulary, ontology, definitions, and policies as knowledge rather than solely within proprietary process or rule management systems is desparately needed. Standards will not become adequate or adequately supported by vendors until the market presses the analysts to do this or until the analysts become more assertive about this. I believe this holds back the rules market along with limited accessibility of most tools.

4) "business rules as a component of BPM" - indeed misses the boat. Knowledge is the missing focus. Business rules are only one form and a detailed one at that. Decisions are a result of knowledge that also deserve attention without overemphasizing their context. BPM is also knowledge-based, but it will remain more procedural, of course.