“By the year 2012, BPM will be subsumed into major applications.” Simon Hayward
See also:
http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/bpmblog/2007/03/the_death_of_bpm_it_aint_over.php
An interesting statement. Especially in the light of the remarks about “What is a Process?” that I made earlier:
http://www.bpmnforum.net/blog/bpmn/bpmn-in-research/what-is-a-business-process/
I suggested, that there are commonalities between Process Objects (Workflows) and Business Objects (like a Sales Order). They have a state, they have actions or activities, they have constraints. There are differences, but as long as we focus on the commonalities, we can think of utilizing this common ground for common frameworks.
Applications are made up of business objects and their relations. Very often these business objects are programmed. In contrast workflows are modeled. So if we can achieve modeling business objects in an application, then the business object model is the foundation for better integration of BPM functionality with the application. I call such a modeled application Business Process Platform or BPP.
To not remain too abstract, I make a concrete example.
Think of a Project Management Application, that has a Business Object “Project”. Now, a Project BO is created. Before the Project is released, there must be an approval. So – when does this Approval start? It needs to start, if the Project business object has reached a certain state – for example “Data Entry finished”. Only then a workflow or task needs ot be started. The workflow or task is what we traditionally understand as being part of BPM and what we model by BPMN for example. But if the state “Data Entry Finished” of the Business Object “Project” is also modeled, then the foundation has been created to use it in a generic framework, that enables BPM – for example by providing events to the workflow to start.
Furthermore if the Approval is finished, a subsequent step (action, activity) must be performed with the Project business object: Release, changing the state to Released.
That is a very simple example, but often difficult to achieve if not these preconditions are met:
- The state of the business object is modeled.
- The action of the business object is modeled.
- The action is provided as web service
- There is a generic framework utilizing it to make the integration of the workflow and the business object happen.
This can only be achieved, if an application is designed from the beginning to provide such modeling information. This had not been completely done in the past. But there is no reason why this should not work. However if an application fulfils 1-4 it should be called a Business Process Platform or BPP.
So with the upcoming advent of BPP, the Applications will be BPM enabled.
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