John M. • Above is a draft BPM sales pitch which is also an inventory of BPM concepts. It's all about business motivation, and revealing the power of BPM. Is this how you see BPM? If not, why not?

You can find the following concepts are all part of the pitch: "the work of business", "technology of work", ”business process technology”, "vision", "model", "survival", "adaptation", and both the “efficiency” and the “business model” business cases.

The pitch speaks directly to senior executives' vision of what they want and need to do to be successful.

Executives' experience of working with IT has been often frustrating. BPM technology promises something new, something never before offered by IT.

This is the promise that a rational dream can be instantiated as the reality of organizational capability.

Put this way, and with the promise delivered by maturing and increasingly capable technology, the BPM pitch is irresistible.

And what about our inventory of BPM sales concepts? If you've had a chance to read a few of Decision Models' other blog entries concerning BPM, you may have noted some of the themes addressed, especially where economics, modelling and work are concerned.

Søren P. • I think you highlight an important point - selling BPM to executives is hard since it is often considered the domain of "technical" people. I also think your pitch includes a lot of key elements of BPM, as I know it.

However, some points diverge from how I see BPM. I think you use the word "technology" too much. To me BPM provides an abstraction layer on the business. It makes a lot of what today is tacit knowledge more explicit. In turn, the explicit knowledge of business processes gives employees a common language and a framework for collaborating and improving their ways of working. This new transparency and spirit of collaboration can help bring about the behavioral change that can lead to actual business results. However, as such BPM is only an enabler of behavioral change.

John M. • Soren, thanks for the great feedback! I'm also very happy that you highlighted the issue of "technology" because this question is very important. Here's what Wikipedia (August 5th, 2011) says to introduce the concept of technology:

"Technology is the making, usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or serve some purpose. The word technology comes from Greek τεχνολογία (technología); from τέχνη (téchnē), meaning "art, skill, craft", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study of-".[1] The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology."

This Wikipedia definition is a nice; the implication of course is that an "abstraction layer" is also business technology. And even methodologies used by business analysts to model their business domains, are also business technology. The act of "modelling" is the use of a "technology of modelling" to do what you have highlighted, which is to make the tacit more explicit.

Insofar as management is a science (as well as an art), management is the domain of rationality. And modelling or abstraction technology is one of the central ways in which management can turn vision into reality via a rational process.

Does this identification of business process modelling as business technology help sell technology? Does it help business analysts and business process owners achieve their goals faster and with better results?

I would say the answer is emphatically "yes". A successful BPM process is about progressively articulating a vision of a better organizational reality -- and BPM technology provides THE way of translating that vision into reality.

So, I agree, BPM is "an enabler of change", but I'd go further and say that without BPM technology there is no business process change. And that by identifying, learning and managing BPM business technology "as technology", one will be more successful.

Marshall McLuhan said about print and video technology that "the medium is the message". I'm can't judge whether Dr. McLuhan is correct in the field of communications theory, but his emphasis on technology as important is very interesting.

If print technology is an enabler of revolutionary social change, then perhaps BPM business technology is an enabler of business change. Many have wondered why it has taken a decade to produce somewhat disappointing results around BPM technology adoption. I would say that one reason for this is the subject under discussion here, which is a reluctance to embrace BPM as a business technology.

What happens when we don't call out BPM business technology as such? (1) Senior business executives treat BPM as a magical "black box" and (2) IT specialists act as a priestly caste tending private knowledge gardens. And the "impedance mismatch" between the two results in very low bandwidth communications and event worse results.

You have identified the answer: "a common language" with "a new transparency and a spirit of collaboration", which is a wonderful way of describing a way forward. May I suggest that that common language is in fact "BPM business technology" and that transparency is achieved via the models which are the produced artifacts of the use of BPM business technology.

With BPM business technology at our side, we can make the claim that it is possible to "turn your business vision into productive reality". And that claim is not smoke and mirrors, but based on the existence and use of real and increasingly powerful BPM business technology. What a sales opportunity!

Søren P. • John, thanks for the thorough response. I agree with the definition of technology that you use. However, it's my experience that many people tend to confuse technology with its artifacts (e.g. servers, software packages, sensors, etc.) For this reason I try to avoid speaking too much about technology and more about the benefits from it when doing B2B selling. If not, senior executives (at least in Europe) tend to loose interest and turn you over to the IT or quality departments.

Also, while I agree with the potential of BPM technologies most of them seem to be made for technologists and not for "normal users". They are most often too complex to use since they are designed by highly sophisticated users and for highly complex environments. It is my experience that most companies can get very far with a very basic modeling language - even drawing up processes on wyteboard or paper - if this approach means that normal employees become more engaged in business processes.

John M. • Experimental Vision-Based BPM Sales Pitch Meets BPM Sales Reality

Soren, in turn thank you for engaging with me in dialogue on in this interesting and important question. I especially noted your comment that European executives lose interest when they hear the world "technology"; my experience is that on the whole European business people are sometimes more willing than their practically-minded (at least by reputation) North American counterparts to engage with technology!

Here are two comments:

1. "LURE OF THE GENERIC" -- You might enjoy my blog item on this topic. Selling-by-benefits is important but not sufficient when you are evangelizing for advanced technology: http://www.standupsales.com/dont_be_seduced_by_the_allure_of_the_generic

1. "FUTURE OF BUSINESS ARCHITECTURE" -- Coincidentally today John Rymer of Forrester blogged about the question of business analysis, process technology and the idea of a senior "executive" champion -- with responsibility for execution. http://blogs.forrester.com/john_r_rymer/11-08-04-the_business_architect_cometh

These are difficult questions, where sociology and anthropology probably have as much to say about how to sell BPM technology as anything. BPM is as you say quite complicated, and this complication is partly an artifact of the level of BPM theory that is available for productization.

In my own day-to-day sales role I generallly follow your recipe!

But in originally suggesting above the "experimental sales pitch", I wanted to see if it was possible to go further and directly address a "vision pitch" to senior executives.

Some senior execs do like the idea of being able to "more rapidly turn their business vision into a business reality" -- which is a positive way of saying that people are frustrated by having the "IT tail wag the business dog" all the time.

Certainly there are challenges selling the technology.

However I believe that any difficulties will be swallowed when we begin to see organizations that have made the BPM technology effort begin to pull away from their competitors.

Ajit K. • Sorry folks, once again we are trying to repackage common sense into a moment of epiphany. I spent 50 years in business world before retiring. The first 35 were in real business where we made products and delivered services and not preach about what was wrong and what new technology would enable us to do magic if we only listened to consultants. We brought technology incrementally and gained value from our investments. We did seek advice from consultants and used their bound reports only as a position to justify to the management the real value of a strategy. We never thought of bringing mainstream any tech-fad; though we had group that experimented with the latest gizmos. In doing so my company lost a lot of opportunities in using its innovation to its advantage. Any amount of new jargon EA, BPM, SOA, Cloud computing, etc., would not have convinced the company to listen to its innovators and stop just milking the cash cows. History is full of such anecdotes. I am not against technology and certainly not against BPM or any other future advancements but to present these always as the greatest gift to mankind is annoying and insulting to our long productive careers and achievements. I do know some of you personally and do not wish to be rude but pleaseeee do not make BPM/EA as the next nirvana for business.

Ajit Kapoor

Good luck to your endeavors and may you all have a productive careers.

Søren P. • @ John. Agree with your point that business leaders can only benefit fully from technology if they understand it beyond a generic level. I'm very much in favour of targeting early adopters, since they often understand how to deploy technology more effectively.

@ Ajit. Agree that technologies such as BPM should be deployed with common sense. As you see in my previous post I advocate starting drawing processes on paper or wyteboard before deploying any technology. Nevertheless, the success of web based technologies during the last decade should justify being very bullish on the effect of succesful deployments of technology in business. Not sure BPM alone can justify this...

George C. • John, I have been involved in the BPM trend for about 10 years. To be honest, I feel extremely enthusiastic talking about BPM and especially about BPM benefits. It is a great and pragmatic concept (a gate to rationality) from my point of view. However, I have to admit that creating a network of thoughts on a concept or idea will not change the world or even your ecosystem; it will change yourself and the way you will perceive the world; it is a kind of captivity. I am living in this way.

The question I am asking myself is why there is no holistic BPM implementation (even the largest companies in the world has not implemented any BPM approach as it is defined by experts). Moreover many BPM initiatives fails. What we can find, after 6 years of being considered the "hottest technology of the year" by the CIOs (according to Gartner) are some BPM based Enterprise Automates (some web applications where BPM is hidden somewhere in the background).

In the context, I found a very interesting information: Management by Processes classes (the fundamentals of BPM concept) are absent in the curricula of many famous business and management schools around the world. As a matter of fact the concept does not exist in business formal education.

John M. • PART I of II - Reconcile BPM Scepticism With BPM Possibilities - Via A Position Against Magical Thinking
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1.EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The promise of BPM technology is only realized within the context of traditional management skills and discipline. Ironically it is an erroneous common pattern of “magical thinking” that impedes success in both traditional- and BPM technology enabled management environments.

2.INTERVENTION WARNING AGAINST OVERSELLING BPM TECHNOLOGY

LinkedIn member Mr. Ajit Kapoor has made an excellent intervention in this discussion. Our root discussion concerns an “experimental BPM technology sales pitch” which posited that “for the first time in history, we have a technology that is explicitly about taking your vision about how your business operates, and building tools that directly make it possible to run your business, according to that vision."

Specifically Mr. Kapoor has articulated a powerful position that new technologies such as BPM software should not be pitched as "nirvana". And his riposte comes with powerful credibility based on his achievements and career.

I agree with Mr. Kapoor, which may be surprising to anyone following this dialogue. However, it is possible to reconcile Mr. Kapoor's hard-won scepticism with an acknowledgement that a greater BPM technology opportunity is taking shape.

How can BPM technology scepticism be reconciled with BPM technology enthusiasm?

3.BPM TECHNOLOGY FETISHIZATION IS MISGUIDED

First, let's agree that exciting "new" technologies should not be presented as "epiphanies" or "nirvana", which would be to fetishize a new technology as a magical or supernatural phenomenon. Management is, as Mr. Kapoor emphasizes, a game of inches where good practices day-in and day-out hopefully will result in measurable, incremental and sustainable gains. These gains are usually hard-won, regardless of any supporting technology or especially consultant-promoted “technologies-du-jour”. In fact, it is these bedrock management skills that are the secret to success with BPM technology.

4.10 YEARS OF BPM TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT ADD UP

Clearly new technologies can make dramatic impacts on ways of life. You can think of innumerable examples, for instance the railroad, or the printing press.

During the development of a new technology, there is the possibility that "quantity will turn into quality" and then one may approach a point where generations of incremental improvements in technology add up to an effectiveness or adoption inflection point.

Based on evidence in the field and in the labs, BPM technology may be at such an inflection point; this perception is the justification for the “for the first time in history” claim in the experimental sales pitch.

5.DISAPPOINTING BPM TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION RATES

Note that inflection points need not result in immediate geometric market growth! As George Cretu points out in this discussion, BPM technology has been voted “hottest technology every year for six years”, despite mediocre adoption rates.

How can increasingly powerful BPM technology be used successfully? And what about those disappointing rates of BPM technology adoption?

The answer is “back to basics – for everyone”. The only approach that can possibly succeed with new BPM technology starts with the approach that Mr. Kapoor has outlined, which is hard-headed, incrementalist, business-oriented thinking about technology and its application to business.
Please see Part II

John M. • PART II of II - Reconcile BPM Scepticism With BPM Possibilities - Via A Position Against Magical Thinking
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6.BPM TECHNOLOGY A FORCE MULTIPLIER FOR MANAGEMENT SKILLS

Until now, it has often been easy for business executives to regard business process as a "black box", which is a species of "magical thinking". The application of the Nike "Just Do It" slogan to business is a symptom of this dysfunctional and even irrational approach. As a result, BPM initiatives have been mostly driven by IT departments, technically-adept cadres which nevertheless lack the business vision and business skills required for broad business process application. Research reports from such organizations as Aberdeen Group clearly specify differences between organizations with process best practices and process laggard practices, and how business process best practices are often associated with best-in-class overall organizational performance.

But what if we see BPM not as an IT function problem, but an executive team opportunity? Business executives by definition are the cadres with the business skills to make successful use of BPM.

And insofar as BPM technology is about translating business vision into business reality, having BPM-literate business executives would be a force multiplier for management skills.

Imagine the result if senior line-of-business and executive suite cadres themselves start thinking deeply about and working directly on business process design and management, with powerful tools appropriate for the job and in partnership with IT and domain expert business analysts.

As BPM technology becomes more powerful and is widely adopted, the powerful will now have more to scope for management – and fewer excuses and roadblocks. Corporate leaders will now have to "get their hands dirty" so to speak, although given the bandwidth limitations of any executive team, well-implemented BPM technologies will likely be empowering for all team members.

The “unexpectedly” slow adoption rates of BPM technologies over 10 years are an artifact both of magical thinking where processes are concerned, but as well, the challenge of getting senior executives to learn BPM technology itself. The fact that BPM is still a little too technical, an artifact of the maturity of the technology, is not helpful. Success will require not only continued progress in BPM technology, but in resolutions to questions of training and process governance. Obviously management will have to address governance questions such as “the definition of a given business process, process ownership, process management, process KPIs, process costs, and process evolution etc." These are topics for another day, topics that are now being picked up by BPM technology market and technical commentators.

7.MAJOR ROI FROM A BRIGHT LIGHT INSIDE A BLACK BOX

Executive suite cadres will wake up in the next decade and realize there is no BPM or process nirvana, only hard work and responsibilities for results -- all courtesy of more powerful technologies which shine a bright light inside a black box.

What will be the future of process management as a key executive-suite concern?

If there is a temptation to exercise executive fiat and shout "just do it", the result will likely be inferior to the competitor where the executive team was willing to get involved with the work of business and the articulation of a BPM-technology based "language of business". This “proof-of-the-pudding-in-the-eating” will be the ultimate Darwinian driver of BPM technology adoption.

In summary, BPM technology may be reaching a usability inflection point, but the successful use of BPM technology will require all the hard-won management skills of every executive team. What won't work is magical thinking, either which says "I don't care about how you do the work, just do it" or the kind that says "BPM will be our miracle".