Talk:Business process management/Archive 1

Rewritten
This article should be entirely rewritten and all the catchphrases taken out. No consultants allowed. It contains very little useful information, and what little there is is hard to find. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lotsson (talk • contribs) 08:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

This article should probably be merged with process management. --No it shouldn't. BPM is business specific, whereas traditional process management has assessed industry and manufacture needs. Juancadavid (talk) 04:24, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I would disagree, as this subject has far more specificity than process management while it is also increasing in scope and depth at a rapid pace. Also I disagree in that WORKFLOW software is a very specific thing, whereas Business Process is broad. If you have a business process of course you manage it, however BPR and CPI are facets of that management that may or may not include workflow software.

The first comment refers to the original article before it was rewritten. As I rewrote it, I agree, of course, that BPM is a more specifc topic than process management.

Under Process Monitoring I do not understand the paragraph "There is also a growing interest ... analysis that is typically not available.". Can anybody (the original author?) clarify what is meant here?

08.06.05 I have removed some vendors, who IMHO did not seem to really be BPM vendors. I am unsure about Virtuoso Universal Server which probably would be better situated in the service oriented architecure age.

15.June.05 - This article reads a bit like a vendor sales pitch, in that it is full of superlatives stating that the software is absolutely marvellous. I would suggest toning it down for a more NPOV. Also tie to the word workflow.

26.June.05 - I agree fully with the previous comment, this is more a sales pitch than a Wikipedia article.

02 July 05 - Removed Fuji Xerox Australia from web resources. The web resources were intended to point a reader to sites with a (hopefully) neutral point of view. The products section was intended for vendors (and even here I’ve noticed that vendors creep in without any real relevance to the topic). This brings me on to the last two comments. When I rewrote the article I tried also to avoid a sales pitch. Do the authors of the previous two comments have any thing particular in mind which could be changed?

29 Nov 05 - Somebody out there has placed back the text concerning "relational data" pretty quickly after I have deleted it. My reason for deleting it was that I (and others) could not understand it (see previous entry here). Could the author maybe clarify what it means?

Most of the comments on these article has been written in 2005.

We now read 2009 in the calender, and if anything, the definition of BPM has not came any closer consesus in the general debate.

Instead, most people now argues that BPM is simple a method (of any kind), while BPMS is the software suite used to handle the processes created by applying a BPM.

BPM is not one method, it is any method that uses a processorientated view of describing an enterprise and its business.

Most vendors out there has there own methods, BPM, of filling their BPMS with content.

Furthermore, traditional management consultants has realized that they, if anyone, are extremely strong in the BPM area.

This article confuses the two terms BPM and BPMS and should be split into two articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karl-Oskar (talk • contribs) 10:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Trying not to have the article in limbo
I think the biggest problem with BPM is that there is still a big "disagreement" of what BPM encompases. Maybe the best thing todo is to add links to blogs of the current "thought leaders" in the space, like (Bruce Silver, Phil Gilbert, | Ismael Galimi, Sandy Kemsly and others). I'm just worried that vendors will fight over what the "current advances" are and this article will be ruined. -- Mortenmo 18:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Vendors??
Is it usual to have list of commercial vendors on pages about processes? Are there any guidelines about this? Ansell 08:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


 * It is only usual because it is usual for commercial vendors to obsessively add their name and link to these pages :) They shouldn't be there unless they are vital to a discussion of the topic, and should always be removed. I have removed what I felt was every commercial vendor from this page, and left links that seemed helpful and not commercial (for example, many directory sites exist only for commercial purposes - these are not appropriate). -- Renesis13 18:22, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Keeping this "clean" of commercial vendors is a tiresome effort. Maybe instead there can be another page for "BPMS Vendors" similar to the List_of_BPEL_engines and let the commercial vendors have their fun there? -- Mortenmo 18:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Visio link
The inclusion of a link to Microsoft Visio, while I can see why it could be there, may not be the best example, as it does not produce system-readable models. It simply produces graphics. A better example would be a designer which can be translated into a system readable form. 

Ans e ll 12:07, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Does this site worth to be mentioned?
Business Process Management Initiative (BPMI.org)

http://www.bpmi.org/

I have also found some of the product vendors for the subject. Would any gurus in this field please find time to review them?

http://www.fuego.com

http://www.lombardisoftware.com/bpm-resource-center.php

http://www.handysoft.com/

http://www.capterra.com/business-process-management-software

http://www.rossinc.com/

http://www.sageadonix.com/

http://www.bpmspot.com/


 * My attitude with regards to external links is that they are not there to "promote" people. They are immediately relevant to the subject of the page in an encyclopedic sense, as opposed to an advertising sense. Which leads me to think that all of the links are going to be rejected for use on the main page. Ans e ll  07:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The problem with mentioning vendors is who is going to decide which is out and which is in? There are over 200+ vendors that has some claim to this area and only a small fraction is probably legit. People just want to be on Wikipedia pages to get higher google pagerank scores. It will fast turn into advertisement instead of informational. If there is some limit, who sets it? One can use Forrester Research BPM-Wave or Gartners BPMS magic quadrant leaders, but it will be hard to enforce. But this is just my opinion; it is better just to leave it out. -- Mortenmo 01:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


 * If I am not mistaken, linking to pages from here do not affect pagerank. There is an instruction to robots that tells them "'robots' content='noindex,nofollow'", and hence pagerank of links from the page is not affected. There is still the obvious advertisement quality as Wikipedia pages tend to be in the top ten more regularly than not for topics, and there is no restriction on people following links out after that. Ans e ll  05:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

In terms that who is in and who is out, the information providved by the Web of Science is more authentic and scientific than other commercial site, at far as I know.

If I was able to access to the WOS content, I would provide unbiased review as accurately as possible


 * I have access to WOS, what would you be looking for specifically. Note, you should be able to browse Abstracts without having a subscription, so you should know what you need to see. I actually think that IEEE and LNCS also have very good material btw, from my research in the area. Ans e ll  07:02, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Buzzword bingo
I will be perfectly honest. I tend to think that many articles about business management are thinly veiled consultant spam, and written in such vaguely abstract terms as to be entirely devoid of worthwhile information. This one is another.

I've been asked what specific problems I have with the prose in this article, but in fact the article is so vaguely and abstractly phrased that it is hard to make any suggestion for concrete improvements. Passages like:


 * The activities which constitute business process management can be grouped into three categories: design, execution and monitoring.

remind me of Monty Python's theory about the brontosaurus, that it was thin on both ends and fat in the middle. This entirely a rhetorical tautology. It tells us in effect that any acts compassed in "business process management" involve either thinking them up, doing them, or watching them being done. Anyone given with sufficient leisure and a vocabulary of vaguely abstract words can think up this sort of bollocks. The sentence just contains no information.


 * This encompasses either the design or capture of existing processes. In addition the processes may be simulated in order to test them. The software support for these activities consists of graphical editors to document the processes and repositories to store the process models.


 * An emphasis on getting the design of the process right will logically lead to better results as the flow on effect of problems at the design stage logically affects a large number of parts in an integrated system.

This too is incredibly vague and abstract, all about "processes" and "systems." But all of a sudden a relatively concrete noun - software! - appears, even though nothing about the vague talk about systems and processes even suggests that software is needed. I suspect that all of the process and systems talk is an attempt to glorify the output of flowchart software, and to make vaguely grandiose claims about how more flowcharts will improve anything and everything about your business. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I fear that the very statements which you claim are vacuous are the very ones which, if understood, would invalid your later remarks. The passage you assert as a rhetorical tautology actually states that BPM consists of three groups of activities, i.e. not one or two, but all three. The activities are explained later in the article. Understanding this means that flowcharting software alone is only part of business process management. The claim that the article is an “ … attempt to glorify the output of flowchart software ...” is therefore just simply missing the point.


 * Secondly you imply that the word “process” is too vague and abstract. Although process has not been defined in the article, a reference is made at the beginning to another Wikipedia article.


 * Thirdly, I find the use of the word “bollocks” rather offensive. Perhaps this has something to do with my origins and age (born in the UK in the middle 50s) - adoble 17:50, 6 December 2006 (CET) (This edit was made by 194.45.150.17)


 * I disagree with your notion of buzzwords. Processes and systems are concrete nouns. I just completed my honours thesis dealing with this area, and it was not dealing with buzzwords. Calling an academic discipline, and it most certainly is an academic discipline recognised by universities, and written up in journals, "bollocks" is not be the best reason for a tag such as the buzzwords tag.
 * The statement about the three areas involved, which you think of as a tautology, is a simple description of the area. Feeling that the description is too simple should not imply that it does not contain content.
 * The python joke is misleading in this case. It implies that the whole area is so easy that anyone could actually do it using common-sense, where it is not actually that simple. I will remove the buzzwords tag unless someone has an academic reason why it should remain. Ans e ll  23:40, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

=
Context and Precision of Phrases

The comments of "Ihcoyc" are sharp and at places impolite but they highlight the need to identify the context and bring precison to the terms and phrases (like Data, Information, Knowledge, Software Architecture, Semantics, Meaning, Content...) in current publications, particularly to "Business Process Management".

If the words "Business" "Process" "Management" are defined elsewhere and used, they should be quoted. Then the author(s) should explain what is special about the phrase that the constituent words do not convey.

The words "System","Process" and "Management" are very well defined in ISO 9000 Vocabulary with sufficient precison and scope for general applicability, and so to "Business Process Management". It should be sufficient to define what sub-class of "Process" "Business Process" is. The methods, tools and techniques of "Management" could be many, and they can be named and elaborated without changing the definition of "Business Process Management".

I invite the users Ihcoyc and Ansell to interact with me to edit and refine this article.

Best wishes,

````putchavn1946, Putcha V. Narasimham, putchavn@yahoo.com May 11, 2007

New BPM definition
The BPM group (www.bpmg.org)has attempted to define BM as : "Business Process Management" (BPM) is a natural and holistic management approach to operating business that produces a highly efficient, agile, innovative, and adaptable organization that far exceeds that achievable through traditional management approaches".

Although spanning the business / IT divide is an important component, it is not the main focus of BPM. It is the client. The next big aspect is decentralisation - giving control closer to the front end and less requirement to go to board rooms for decisions. The third is to harness collaboration in an efficient and effective manner. And finally, BPM should assist by creating "fork-lifts for the mind” by allowing technology to interface with people in new ways (the way users might imagine it – and try it).

Removing the coding task, optimising IT projects and getting business sponsors closer to IT development is all fine and good but BPM is way more than this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.47.245.252 (talk) 18:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC).

Business Process != Process
I only would like to note that a "Process" is a fairly generic concept. There are chemical processes, manufacturing processes, etc. A "Business Processes" is a very specific thing. When Michael Hammer coined the term "Business Process Reengineering" he meant that a "Business Process" is specifically a process of office work. It was an attempt to get the business world to think of all the different tasks being done by people in the office as a process; that is as being linked together to produce an overall goal. He wanted specifically to distinguish this from all the other kinds of processes out there, because it is a different subject, and the conclusions that can be drawn from business processes can not necessarily be applied to all processes as well.

I read the page on Process Management and indeed this page is mostly about "Business Processes". Perhaps *that* page is misappropriately named. We should not mix up process management in general, with business process management, which is specifically about office workers working together to accomplish a business goal.

Big Generalization
I read on the page "The value in BPMS is not in automating very simple or very complex tasks, it is in modeling processes where there is the most opportunity." I would like to change this line as it has been my experience, over the better part of a decade that I have been in the BPM field, that different organizations find weight the value of different aspects of BPMS based on thier individual needs. I would say this statement is a bit over the top and may in a real world sense only apply to between 25-50% of those orgainisations using BPMS Happyfish 15:49, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Goflow6206 17:09, 28 May 2007 (UTC)goflow6206

Organization idea for some of the 'Process' related articles
I am by no means an expert to know where all of these terms should fall next to each other. That is to say, which is the most important, and, which are the umbrella terms that encompass the others. I propose a project between those who would consider themselves experts in this area (i.e. professors or consultants in the field) and people who know something and want a bit more logic in the whole experience with these terms. My end proposal would be something like: What do you all think about having a type of Portal page which would put all of these terms in one place, give a representation of a) which are the most important, and b) which are the umbrella terms that encompass others. I am on this talk page because my first guess is Business Process Management might serve as a title for this portal page i am proposing, because it seems it can encompass a some of the other topics.

See also: See also: Process management

•	Operating System Operations •	Business Process Improvement •	Business Process Management •	Human Resource Management Systems •	Management •	Manufacturing process management •	Process Architecture •	Project Management •	Total Quality Management •	Program management •	Business and Company Operating Manuals

Has anyone else gotten this sensation from these topics and agrees with me or has another idea? Have I left out any articles that you might recommend to be included on this portal page? Thanks, --Pointblankstare (talk) 22:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Process Simulation Engines
It would be very useful to have a list of process simulation engines that used standard XML formats like BPEL. --Dan 15:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Business Process versus Process
The bridge between Process Management and Business Process Management has to do with the change in thinking from Industrial Age to Informational Age. We need to acknowledge that. Business Process Management is not exclusively Informational Age or "Office Process". It is a hybrid between Shop Floor, Shipping, Receiving, Storage and Billing, Accounts Receivable, Sales, Marketing, etc. Business Process gives validation and observation to what "white collar" workers do in addition to what "blue collar" workers do. Work happens, and we need to manage it to the best of our ability. (Although the idea of different color collars is increasingly blurred.) --Loaferman 14:48, 19 March 2008 ````

Suggestions by Putchavn
''The following working commentary was inserted directly into the article; I've moved it here. Please note that the article is 'live', and not intended to be a marked up draft. Thanks.  Kuru  talk''  11:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

- Contribution by putchavn:

It is better to use ISO 9000:2005 Definition of "Process" which is very comprehensive and clear. Then one can qualify it with "Business"

ISO 9000:2005 term 3.4.1 process

A Process is a set of interrelated or interacting activities, which transforms inputs (of given specifications) into outputs (of defined specification).

The comments within the parentheses are added for clarification.

Suggested definition of "Business Process"

A Business Process is a process (3.4.1) in which the output is either a product or service that is of value to a customer or client. A Business Process may be constrained by pre-conditions and post-conditions (as per the principles of use case definition and concept of contract). A process needs process resources, other than inputs, which are essential to set up and activate a process. For a business process, some of the process resources are space, energy, infrastructure, human resources, computational & knowledge resources.

The overview may be rewritten thus:

The phrase "Business Process" is an extension of ISO 9000:2005 definition of "Process (3.4.1)" which is very comprehensive and clear.

Quote:

A Process is a set of interrelated or interacting activities, which transforms inputs (of given specifications) into outputs (of defined specification).

Unquote.

The comments within the parentheses are added for clarification.

Accordingly, "Business Process" is a "process (3.4.1)", in which the output is either a product or service that is of value to a customer or client. A Busines Process may be constrained by pre-conditions and post-conditions (as per the principles of use case definition and concept of contract). A process needs process resources, other than inputs, which are essential to set up and activate a process. For a business process, some of the process resources are space, energy, infrastructure, human resources, computational & knowledge resources.

Representation of a Process:

A process may be represented by a "Process Map" which is a network in which the Nodes are Activities and the connections are paths through which material, energy, people, data (M,E,P,D)may flow. A simplified representation as a graph is not expressive enough to allow the flow of M, E, P, D. There should be a provision to represent process resources.

Every process must have a supplier of inputs and receiver of outputs which are external to the process. The parameters of inputs and outputs must also be specified for accurate representation. -- Putcha V. Narasimham

Advertisement?
The "BPM Technology" paragraph goes:

"BPMS could be industrial specific and can be driven by a software such as Agilent OpenLAB BPM"

does referencing Agilent add to the article or is it just advertisement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.20.109.18 (talk) 12:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Request for arbitration and accusation of conflict of interest
I am sure this comment will be removed fairly quickly, but in the meantime people will see the following comment: the BPM page is focused on how the BPMI.org views the industry and is NOT considered to be any type of industry standard. For industry standards, readers should go to either ANSI, AIIM, or ISO as the admin people on this page have a clear and very biased view of what they will allow to be posted, even if it is accurate. Rather they indicate they will block your edits, even though an editor might make multiple attempts to contact the various admin people offline. I have requested a formal arbitration as this is NOT WHAT WIKIPEDIA IS ALL ABOUT !!! I am curious to see how long before this comment is deleted by these same admin people and only exist in the history pages...as a side note, it appears the moderator for this page is either a vendor, works for the BPMI (which is a small and new group of vendors selling software), or just someone who has waay too much spare time on their hands without any interest or objectivity related to other people's input on this topic. I guess over 16 years actually working with organizations implementing process and business change (BPM) has no bearing on the topic.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Robert-blatt (talk • contribs)

An example of how information contained in this page has been "lifted" from organizations is the first drawing which was copied from the US Government NIH website. Did the editor receive permission from the NIH before doing this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.129.56.224 (talk • contribs)
 * It is very likely, though not yet confirmed, that 71.129.56.224 is Robert Blatt's IP address when he fails to post through his account. That said, I just received an email from Mr. Blatt threatening legal action for plagarism.  Unfortunately, it sounds like this user isn't going to be pleased with any solution other than the one he specifically wants, period. --Ericdn (talk) 19:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Be accurate in what you say. Firstly, you never suggested any solution other than letting Doulos decide what should and should not be on the page.  As fast as I was trying to do updates, Doulos was deleting them, flagging my comments and threatening to block my ability to provide further edits.   Is that your concept of resolutoin.  That is why I originally contact you, and was stunned when you offered no assistance at all.   I had sent you an email requesting arbitration to resolve the conflicts.  In your response you never indicated how that is accomplished, but rather indicated there was nothing you could do.  In my response to your email, I indicated that I had already passed this page along to the NIH so that they can decide what to do.


 * So you might want to be more accurate in what you post, along with me indicating that I informed you that I had no further interest in helping fix this page. I tried to share industry standard information that you, or Doulos, or whoever the other editor was that had the ability to block and "undo" other peoples input if they decided the information wasn't to their liking.


 * Whether the people who own the rights to the information want to take action is entirely up to them. Feel free to contact them directly if you want further information.  For some reason you are unable to understand my last email when I noted to you that I have no further interest in what you and Doulos do with this stuff.  I am not sure why you are having difficulty understanding this.  I also suggested you look at various ISO standards if you are truly interested in posting accurate and industry accepted information. END OF CONVERSATION, and as I indicated in my email to you no further communication is necessary !  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.129.56.224 (talk) 07:16, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Everyone has the ability to edit articles, even "anonymous" users, identified only through their IP address. However, only certain people have the ability to block users.  I am not one of those users.  Information posted to this article is judged on accuracy (whenever possible) and whether or not it meets Wikipedia's guidelines of appropriateness. --Ericdn (talk) 07:45, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried to make some changes back in '07 and they were "undone" and I gave up. What ISO standards are out there on this stuff? Wouldn't it be better for us users to see that stuff rather than things that are being taken from vendor sites? (if that is where this comes from). I tried to make changes as a user, but gave up after a while. —Preceding unsigned comment added by J-kilako (talk • contribs) 07:56, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Links to itsmpa.org
This is not an officially recognized organization and was only recently created, possibly a con. Links to it should be considered spam.—Ash (talk) 02:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Unused list of books fails WP:DIRECTORY
The list of Further Reading has been moved here in case anyone wishes to integrate these as references for the text. Including a list of books with similar words in the title does not show how they are directly relevant to the article. —Ash (talk) 08:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Roger Burlton (2001). Business Process Management: Profiting From Process. ISBN 0-672-32063-0
 * James F. Chang (2006). Business Process Management Systems. ISBN 0-8493-2310-X
 * Jay R. Galbraith (2005). Designing the Customer-Centric Organization: A Guide to Strategy, Structure and Process. ISBN 0-7879-7919-8
 * Jean-Noël Gillot (2008). The complete guide to Business Process Management. ISBN 978-2-9528-2662-4
 * Paul Harmon (2007). Business Process Change: A Guide for Business Managers and BPM and Six Sigma Professionals. ISBN 978-0-12-374152-3
 * Keith Harrison-Broninski (2005). Human Interactions: The Heart and Soul of Business Process Management ISBN 0-929652-44-4
 * John Jeston and Johan Nelis (2008) Management by Process: A roadmap to sustainable Business Process Management. ISBN 978-0-7506-8761-4 and Business Process Management: Practical Guidelines to Successful Implementations (2006) ISBN 0-7506-6921-7
 * Martyn Ould (2005). Business Process Management: A Rigorous Approach. ISBN 1-902505-60-3
 * Terry Schurter, Steve Towers. Customer Expectation Management: Success Without Exception". ISBN 0-929652-07-x
 * Howard Smith, Peter Fingar (2003). Business Process Management: The Third Wave.
 * Andrew Spanyi (2003). Business Process Management Is a Team Sport: Play It to Win! ISBN 0-929652-02-3
 * The "Further reading" section is supposed to contain a list of books that are otherwise not referenced in the text, which contain more detail on the topic than the encyclopedia article. This list of books seems pretty good in that respect.  If there are any in particular that are not actually related to BPM or are redundant to other books already listed, that would be a good reason to remove individual entries. -- Beland (talk) 16:24, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Why no development in the lifecycle?
Why is there no development in the lifecycle model? It would be between Modeling and Execution/Monitoring. Modeling allows simulation to be done but does not allow for full execution. Between modeling and execution there has to be something like "development". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcallaghanjr (talk • contribs) 16:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 January 2021 and 30 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Alexarussell21.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Confusing and incomplete
The overview is vague and full of unfamiliar terms. I would suggest moving the bulk of the material into a new section "Relationship to other techniques" and making the overview a concrete, short explanation of what BPM is. An example or two would help immensely. Actually, it seems there are no examples of companies who have used this technique anywhere in the article, that would be an excellent addition. The history of who came up with BPM in the first place would also be very informative. -- Beland (talk) 16:18, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Definition of BPM is incorrect. Why?
I've been in the BPM industry for ten years and I still cannot work out why Wikipedia has not changed the definition on the BPM page. The correct definition should be: "BPM is a management discipline that focuses on improving corporate performance by managing a company's business processes". (Source: Paul Harmon - BPM Trends.com and Theodore Panagacos - The Ultimate Guide to Business Process Management pages 6-7).

Referring to BPM as a 'holistic management approach' is incorrect. BPM is a sub-discipline of Business Architecture and makes up one of the five change management functions (Strategy, Business Architecture, BPM, Lean, and Six Sigma). The rest of the article is also confusing and contains incorrect details that are loosely sourced. Also, BPM is a business discipline, not an IT discipline. IT is used to support the automation of business processes but the responsibility of managing them lies with the business itself (hence the term Business Process Management!). This article appears largely IT focused for some unknown reason. T2599 (talk) 01:00, 29 January 2013 (UTC)