The path to business process transformation

Forrester defines business process management (see chart) as a discipline focused on continuous improvement and transformation of end-to-end cross-functional business processes. While BPM suites have their roots in the discipline of BPM, they provide software for designing, automating, managing and improving business processes, often in tandem with business rules and analytics. BPM suites give businesses the tools necessary to effectively manage, control and improve operational processes that span the enterprise. How that tool gets applied becomes the core issue that delivers business value. To reach that goal, you must first define what BPM-the discipline-means for your organization, and then pinpoint the specific business process capabilities that must be strengthened.

Forrester's framework for implementing BPM suites defines the critical capabilities necessary for maximizing the value and impact of your BPM software investment. Before implementing a BPM suite, determine your capabilities in the areas listed in the sidebar which follows.

Balance between the business domain, process disciplines and technology can be achieved in the short term by focusing on key areas that will ultimately push your organization to adopt new practice capabilities. Understanding the leading disruptive trends in the business, the most transformative aspects of the process, the highest value technology areas and the important process skills will be time well spent.

Steps to take before deploying a BPM suite 

Determine your organization's capabilities in the following areas before implementing a BPM suite:

Define your business process strategy before considering BPM suites. Start your evaluation of BPM suite best practices by assessing your company's ability to define a coherent process improvement strategy and communicate the strategy widely throughout the organization. The process strategy identifies the types of processes you will target, articulates the desired process-related outcomes and benefits to be realized by the company, and is based on sound analyses of what delivers value to the organization.

Build the right structure and skill sets. Establishing the right level of governance and accountability ranks as perhaps the most important, and often the most overlooked, category of best practices that can turbo-charge or sink your BPM suite initiative. This means evaluating your approach to process governance and key process roles and responsibilities. The skills needed for these projects range from the change agent's communication, change management and business case skills, to business architecture, process architecture and process analysis. Many times these skills do not exist in the organization and must be developed.

Secure executive and senior management buy-in, and don't overlook the need for people's buy-in and managing change. Process governance includes establishing standards for evaluating, prioritizing and implementing specific process improvement projects. Effective process governance requires input and agreement from executive and senior management throughout the organization. But don't forget: To effectively deliver BPM implementations, you need pragmatic and clear-eyed evaluation of BPM-related skills for both leadership and implementation roles. Yes, support from executives and senior management is essential, but so is that of the people who will be implementing and using the suite.

Tailor and refine your BPM methodology. BPM suite best practices typically revolve around establishing, and constantly refining, a cycle of continuous process analysis, design and execution to address the constant drumbeat of change within the business-whether that change is continuous improvement, product changes, restructuring, compliance regulations or competitive pressures. Teams must build agile and iterative BPM approaches flexible enough to scale to meet latent demand as business process pros broadcast BPM project successes throughout the organization.

Know that your analysis is only as good as your methodology. With numerous process analysis approaches to draw from, BPM teams must evaluate and standardize on the right combination of techniques that best match critical characteristics and goals defined for the process improvement initiative. Many visionary leaders seek to do both, so a combination of Lean and Six Sigma makes sense, particularly when using Lean for the larger, cross-functional processes and using Six Sigma for the more focused, line of business processes.

Recognize that effective design and development keep business stakeholders in the driver's seat. Process design requires teams to move from the drawing board to building the physical process model that will engage process stakeholders, front line and customers. Effective process design requires teams to establish process development, user experience design, business rules management, and flexible workflow design approaches that minimize time-to-value and deliver maximum flexibility for future process changes.

Empower workers with flexible work management and monitoring during execution. The rubber finally meets the road when BPM teams deploy process solutions to anxious constituents. But approach this carefully, because a poor hand-off between design and execution often results in frustration and significant rework. To effectively move from process design and development to process execution and monitoring, teams should strengthen capabilities that support work and task management, dynamic case management, process intelligence reporting and social interaction.

Leverage technology to get the maximum benefit from BPM efforts. Technology integration and infrastructure play an important role in enabling and extending BPM suites into new areas of the business. The BPM suite self-assessment should review your capabilities in process integration, asset management and technology infrastructure.