“BPM refers to a set of management disciplines that accelerate effective business process improvement by blending incremental and transformative methods. BPM’s management practices provide for governance of a business process environment towards the goal of improving agility and operational performance. BPM is a structured approach that employs methods, policies, metrics, management practices and software tools to manage and continuously optimize an organization’s activities and processes.” is one definition of BPM (Gartner: Cantara & Hill, 2008).

In the sense that BPM and ACM both have the goal to improve operational performance and to optimize the activities and processes within an organization, they are similar. Both offer process modeling, process governance and software tools.

But ACM is so different from BPM, that we, the protagonists of the book “Mastering the Unpredictable” say, that it is not BPM and that BPM is not ACM.

The ultimate goal of BPM is to define repeatable processes in a way that they can be managed, measured and optimized. This is a good goal, if the process is repeatable. Not repeatable processes are not the primary focus of BPM. ACM targets mainly not repeatable processes. Furthermore the approach of BPM typically is Top-Down whereas the approach of ACM typically is Bottom-Up.

Q: What is the key difference between BPM and ACM

The key difference is this:

In BPM the process must be defined completely before it can be managed, in IT terms it must be modeled completely before it can be executed within a Business Process Management System. In ACM a process emerges while it is being executed, and at the same time is managed.

Q: Describe how process modeling for ACM might differ from BPM. Will BPMN be useful for ACM?

I would not necessarily talk about process modeling within ACM. I would use the term process definition.

Process modeling for most people implies a graphical process model, just like with BPMN. But in ACM there is not necessarily a graphical process model. There may be for some parts or snippets of a process. Some graphical process renderings may be read-only, while the process definition is done in the form of something similar like a task-list. Some ACM process models may be graphical and editable. There certainly will be process analytics. But the emphasis in ACM is on process execution, not on process modeling. However different forms of process models will most probably emerge, that differ from BPMN.

I believe the way how ACM processes are defined should be designed independent of BPMN. Modeling skills should not be necessary to use an ACM system. It must be very intuitive. It must and will be as simple as writing down a task list or writing bullet points in a slide presentation or filling a spreadsheet.

However I think it will still be possible to export ACM processes to BPMN. If it will be possible to import BPMN to ACM I do not know. I have doubts. It is not the best use case in my opinion, because immature or rarely repeatable processes will first be defined within ACM and not as a BPMN model, and for me it does not make much sense to execute a BPMN process within an ACM system. But in the long run I may be surprised.

An emergent process is a process whose form unfolds/emerges while it is being executed. It is the opposite of a designed process, because the form of a designed process is defined before it is executed. An emergent process starts with some definitions of goals and some first workitems. Then the process is started to be executed. Later in the process execution, after the first results have been achieved, the process is changed, so that additional/more detailed goals and/or workitems are defined, removed, prioritized higher or lower and/or planned, assign a different process owner or process members, new deadlines. Furthermore emergent processes may be split/merged while they are already in execution. Still the workitems are not independent from each other, because they are connected within the emergent process and contribute towards a common goal. So taking all measures to ensure that a process is still able to reach its goal even under changed circumstances is what is necessary here. We call this to adapt the process or the case.

The effect on the system is that there must be no distinction between a process design time and a process runtime. The design time is the runtime and the runtime is the design time. Any process system that distinguishes process design time and process runtime is not fit for this task. The process system must be designed from the beginning to be adaptive. Furthermore it is not sufficient to plan with tasks and relationship between tasks, because this process language is not flexible enough.

Q. How can work be unpredictable? How do you handle that?

Work can be unpredictable, because it is not possible to predict which results the first steps of the work will yield and succeeding steps depend on the outcome of preceding steps. Theoretically one could model all possible outcomes and all possible reactions to all outcomes – at least try to. This is modeling a scenario like for example a military battle scenario. However this investment is not economical in most real life situations and processes. Therefore it is often better to define a goal on a high level and leave the detailed planning of the steps that lead to the high level goal until later and/or to different experts. Modeling a complete scenario like modeling a military battle scenario still has many unpredictable components like unexpected events, ambushes, different than expected landscape, enemy troop moves etc. Generally spoken the sources of unpredictability in my opinion are these:

• Decisions of individuals that cannot be predicted
• Complexity of a situation, that cannot be analyzed completely a priori and
• Unpredicted events like an economic of financial crisis, rapid change in politics and other similar unpredicted events – even natural events.
• Limitations in individual knowledge.

The handling of the situation must be to perform a new evaluation of currently planned measures in the light of their contribution to a previously defined goal. This means to adapt the process as already mentioned above.

In my experience limitations of individual knowledge is the most common reason for unpredictability. In practical terms work is unpredictable, if there is noone, that knows all the details, even if they could – theoretically – be known. And as we all know this is how it is. We all know only parts. If we want to make progress quite naturally we want and need to explore previously inkown areas. To us it makes no difference if these areas are only unkown to ourselves or generally unkown. The effect is the same: We cannot plan the details ahead.

For example I want to write a software program and I want to integrate a certain functionality. I may have 2-3 modules, that could do the job, but I do not know which fits best, until I just try it. After I have tried, I know. Then I can decide and plan all the succeeding steps.

Q: Why is it such a hot topic right now to discuss alternatives to BPM?

It is the right time to discuss, if classical BPM has delivered on the promises. BPM is now around for some while and has been applied in many projects. BPM technology has been used in practice. It is a natural process to ask: what have we learned from it? Where did BPM work and where did it not work as expected? What are the reasons? Which basic BPM assumptions are there, which are limitations that should be questioned?

It turns out, that one basic BPM assumption was that work is to some degree repetitive. And some work is. BPM proved successful within processes which are repetitive and the profit of BPM is the economy of scale – i.e. the more often a BPM process is executed, the more profit comes from it. But on the other hand it becomes obvious, that a growing percentage of the work in today’s industry is not repetitive – especially knowledge work is not. Furthermore unpredicted events lead to discontinuation of previously repetitive work and the need to manage the unpredictable. Therefore alternatives to BPM should be discussed right now.

Q: What is knowledge work, and why does it require a new approach?

A knowledge worker is a professional – that is my personal definition – whose flow of work depends on decisions based on knowledge, which he or persons of his professional network create, collect and distribute. Therefore by nature it is not predictable a priori, because succeeding work depends on the outcome of preceding work. It is a chain of processing knowledge, decide based on the acquired knowledge and process knowledge again. The work is explorative, not prescribed. A new approach is needed, because classical BPM assumes, that a flow of work can be designed a priori and executed later.

Q: How important is knowledge work?

The number of knowledge workers is constantly increasing. According to Thomas H. Davenport (Thinking for a Living) it was about a quarter to half of the workforce of the U.S. in 2005. In my opinion it is decisive for the developed countries, to make knowledge work more effective in order to stay competitive.

In my personal opinion it is no question at all, that there is a overwhelming amount of knowledge work which can and must be made more effective. In my opinion the problem so far was and still is that the technology needed to make it more effective was and is not available yet. As soon as the technology is available, it will certainly be needed.

Q: What is a specific example of the kind of knowledge work that might be supported?

A specific example is described in my chapter “Improving Knowledge Work” in the book “Mastering the Unpredictable”. There is Leona who works for a telecommunications company as an engineer and she needs to do phone support. The work she does in the support area is described with examples, as customer complaints need to be solved. Some tests need to be executed and some countermeasures need to be taken. The work is unpredictable, because the tests and the countermeasures depend on the situation. However the work can still be supported with Adaptive Case Management.

Other exampled mentioned by Davenport are:

• Management
• Business and financial operations
• Computer and mathematical
• Architecture and engineering
• Life, physical and social scientists
• Legal
• Healthcare practitioners
• Community and social services
• Education and Training

I will discuss more questions in other posts.

Knowledge worker productivity is the biggest of the 21st century management challenges. In the developed countries it is their first survival requirement. In no other way can the developed countries hope to maintain themselves, let alone to maintain their leadership and their standards of living.” – Peter F. Drucker

The facilitation of the knowledge workers and knowledge work, what is increasingly known as “Case Management,” represents the next imperative in office automation. The desire to facilitate work within the workplace is not new, yet recent advances in Information Technology make the management of unpredictable circumstances now a practical reality.

Over the course of the past few months there has been a groundswell of interest in a more flexible, dynamic approach to supporting work. Here are examples of what recognized experts have recently written on the topic:

“Advancing to support more knowledge work is the goal of many organizations, thus there is a new swell of activity around unstructured processes.” – Gartner VP of Research, Jim Sinur, Jan 2009

“I think a sea change is coming in the process world.” – Forrester Research Vice President, Connie Moore, July 2009

The sea of change Connie Moore refers to toward technology which is able to support knowledge workers. The work of a knowledge worker is by its nature unpredictable and can not be handled by more formalized process definition techniques.

For executives and managers of knowledge workers, Mastering the Unpredictable:

• Explains the need, and why previous trends don’t meet the need
• Explains the current technology gap, and the new technology that is coming to fill the gap
• Lays out the options have at their disposal to increase efficiency of their organization
• Equips them to best take advantage of this evolving trend

The book is a collaborative work of authors from industry which are process experts and thought leaders. The chapter I have written is titled “Improving Knowledge Work”. This is the chapter description:

Elsewhere in this book, the challenges facing an increasing number of knowledge workers are discussed. This book is about how information technology can leverage the abilities of individual knowledge workers. This is not about individual tools; it is about a holistic approach: Adaptive Case Management (ACM). But the approach will only work if individual knowledge workers draw immediate benefit from it. In this chapter, I argue that knowledge work will become easier, more fluent, if the right technology is provided. This is the basis for success within a network of knowledge workers, which in turn will yield the return on investment for the companies they work for. To accomplish this, the characteristics of knowledge work must be directly reflected within the information technology so that the use of such technology feels natural. I will discuss the technology needed to achieve this goal. In closing, I will sketch the full long-term potential for ACM.

Order Book

To my surprise Why do Process Modeling Projects fail? made it quite high in the ranks. But if I think about it – yes – I understand the question very well.

I had my own share of failed projects, especially when I was novice in the area. And each failed project taught me something that I did not know before. After a while trying again and again I discovered stunning facts that were the foundation for succeeding success.

In my eyes this is absolutely natural in the area of knowledge work. And modeling is knowledge work. Therefore it is inevitable to try, to fail, to learn and finally to succeed.

If somebody promises: “I have the silverbullet method.” something is wrong. Either the task is too simple and therefore mainly irrelevant, or it is a lie. Business Processes are far from being simple, and if they are, then they are not worth modeling them, because they describe an area where only commodity business is done.

It looks so simple on the first glance. But it isn’t. For example take the other question: How to model one process with different variations at once? It is not so simple to answer this question. In my experience what is necessary to succeed in business process modeling is a deeper understanding about the laws of the business processes domain. Otherwise the result will be too complex to be used in practical terms. For example a car can be engineered, if the engineer understands the underlying laws of physics. Even if the car modeling tools look simple in the first place, they alone are not sufficient, nor are “methods” to model. Tools can help, methods can help. But they are not sufficient. Many training classes teach tools or methods. But to achieve a deeper understanding of the laws of the business processes domain in general, and the laws of the business processes from the special domain that I am modeling, they do not suffice.

The need for methods and tools is also expressed in the questions What are the 5 golden rules of process design? And Which business process management tool and notation suit my needs best? Given what I said I would answer this:

1. We need to find out the laws of business processes domain and the special domain that I am modeling.
2. We need to find 5 rules that respect these domain laws.
3. We need to identify the notation, that best fits to these domain laws and
4. We need to build or select a tool that supports this notation and is convenient to use.

Of course this has been tried many times. BPMN 2.0 and BPMN in general is just another attempt towards this goal. But still one of the most asked questions is: Why do Process Modeling Projects fail? I have my own opinion about the natural laws of business processes. I have modeled many hundreds Business Processes with 1000+ models from the areas of Customer Relationship Management, Supplier Relationship Management, Logistics, Supply Chain Planning, Financial Accounting, Project Management, Human Resources and others. I think BPMN respects some of the laws of business processes, but not all. For example Flexibility and Extensibility is not respected enough. It is not respected enough, that the result of a process is more important than the steps within the process, because the result is needed for another process, but the steps are irrelevant. Therefore there are too many variations of the processes, which are actually not needed, if the results of processes are modeled instead of the steps leading to the result. Another opinion about BPMN type of modeling I have is that most processes are over specified. This means the model is much less flexible than the reality.

In these days the Workflow Coalition will publish a book “Mastering the Unpredictable”. There we – process thought leaders from industry – argue that today’s process technology does not yet reflect the laws of unpredictable business processes and that there exist many of those.

Two recent Gartner key Predictions give insight in this very interesting and emerging part of process technology:

By 2012, 20 per cent of customer-facing processes will be knowledge-adaptable and assembled just in time to meet the demands and preferences of each customer, assisted by BPM technologies.

By 2013, dynamic BPM will be an imperative for companies seeking process efficiencies in increasingly chaotic environments.

So the whole process technology topic is still making very necessary progress. New domain specific languages will emerge, of which BPMN is but one. These new languages will respect the now known laws of the business process domain in a better way than today.

This all is nice and good. But what should I do today? Wait for a better future? Certainly not.

What are practical findings from using BPMN? is a very clear question and it is the most asked question. And in my opinion this is the best question. Because it is possible to use BPMN in a way, that respects the domain laws of business processes, even if they are not yet built into the notation. And this knowledge is exchanged by practical tips solving practical problems. Yes, there is a need to better understand the theory as the question What is new in BPMN 2.0? indicates. But even more there is the need for practical tips.

In my experience this can be achieved by coaching and governance. This is supported by the question What is required for BPMN coaching and governance? which is also quite high in the ranks. The answer is another question: Why you need a center of excellence BPM? The answer is: To provide the necessary coaching and governance. Of course there is much more to know about what is required for BPMN coaching and governance.

In some weeks I will start a coaching program. You are invited to it. You should have theoretical background already and you should have some practical experience already as well. The number of participants is limited to 7 for one year. It includes a Kick off meeting, weekly Web-Meetings as well as monthly meetings in a city somewhere in the middle of all participants. I addition to this coaching program I will offer training classes for the public as need arises. One training class will certainly address BPMN 2.0, another probably about how to organize coaching and governance inside your company- all with a very pragmatic approach. Of course the blog also will continue and I may publish another book or articles once in a while. I am looking forward to meet many of you in person who are reading this blog now for a while.

Suddenly I felt like in a lively discussion about what I thought for some time about the inflexibility of BPM models (what if the approver is on leave?), the ad-hoc nature of real processes (like in a court trial) and the small amount of system support for these.

Yes, Business Process Modeling to a degree rests on the assumption, that there are repetitive procedures that are triggered by a business transaction, and which is described in terms of which steps to execute as a result of it. Like a machine.

Did you ever wonder why there is so little standard software for startups – or business process models? If it where a standard process, it were not a startup. The driver in the seat hopefully is the founder of the startup, not a process.
I agree to the observation, that there are much more processes like this all over the place. And maybe there should be even more again, reverting the feeling to be but a cogwheel in the engine, but a responsible contributor – even for the benefit of the whole.

Still, what we need to work effective is system support for

• our information
• Collaboration and Communication over the information
• a clear status of all of the process and all parts of it
• Decide about next steps as you go
• Decide about required information as you go
• Decide about groups and access policies as you go
• Decide about information structure as you go.
• Overview and Tracking

Only to mention the most important ones.

This is not what you can to with BPM . Therefore we need a new breed of software which is not BPM, even if it is related to it.

I want to mention two things, that were not or not deeply discussed in the meeting as an additional contribution and defence of what I said.

First: Even with all the ad-hoc type of processes it is clear that over time some of them evolve in standard processes, which is a good thing. Because that is the time to earn money for the process owner. So there must be ways to

• pick best practices and develop them into standard processes
• re-design a bunch of local best practices into a global standard process.
• impose constraints of a standard process on the business

All of that as you go – i.e. without interfering the running processes.
Which is easily said – sounds a little like marketing buzz – but certainly challenging in terms of technology. But I wouldn’t say it, if I didn’t think it’s possible.

In Process design and re-design I disagree here with Max J. Poucher’s more philosophical statements about evolution. I do not believe as much in evolution as an unguided process as he seemingly does. I believe that redesigning processes as a whole makes them more effective, and more rewarding to everybody if done right.

Second, I think that we need is a seamless integration (A word that you first learn in marketing) with structured processes – be they classical workflows or classical ERP processes. In my opinion there is much ROI to be found.

Related Blog Posts

Adaptive Case Management by Max J. Pucher

Complex Adaptive Business Process by Max J. Pucher

Ad-Hoc Processes by me

Intelligence in Business Processes by me