BPMS Watch

BPMN Training v3.0… online, and live in Chicago

I’ve just finished version 3.0 of my Process Modeling with BPMN course - it should go live on BPMessentials tomorrow.  A 2-day classroom version will be held in Chicago on April 16-17, hosted by the BPM Institute.  Same material, same hands-on exercises with Process Modeler for Visio, same certification procedures as the online.  Once the online goes live, I’ll write more about v3.0.  I’m really happy with it.  Pricing for the class in Chicago is set by BPM Institute.  The earlier you register, the lower the price, that’s the basic formula.  So sign up soon.

Add comment March 5th, 2008

BPMN and the Business Process Expert

Over the past several months I’ve been doing a lot of work with SAP to beef up the modeling-related content on their BPX community site.  BPX stands for Business Process Expert, a term intended to describe a new role in the organization, straddling the line between business and IT.  I see BPMN as a critical enabler of this role, because it for the first time allows process modeling, a business function, to be directly integrated with process implementation design… throughout the process lifecycle.  Traditional modeling notations assumed the model was standalone, used for documentation, analysis, and generation of “business requirements” handed off to IT, who would start over in a new design tool with a different metamodel, different data model, and different programming model.  Agile?  I don’t think so.

BPMN enables a new iterative implementation style in which business collaborates directly with IT throughout the cycle, rather than a one-time handoff.  That’s because the BPMN model has the expressiveness and semantic precision to underpin an executable design.  The BPM Suites that do it right — and those that don’t are trying to move that way — don’t start over in a separate design tool but layer implementation properties on top of the BPMN model objects - activities, gateways, and events.  So the model, i.e. the BPMN diagram, remains an abstract business view of the implementation throughout the development and maintenance cycle.

Achieving this demands a new role, the BPX, who can translate process knowledge and business requirements into the BPMN model and work with IT in that iterative/collaborative fashion.  The BPX community site on SAP Developer Network (SDN) is trying to facilitate the growth of this role, with free resources of all sorts, including a series of articles and Flash tutorials on BPMN modeling which I authored. 

The BPX site tries to remain free of any SAP marketing, although I’ve never understood why.  It may seem odd that SAP is pushing this line of thinking — sounds more like Lombardi or Appian, you might say.  But SAP has been peeling back the veil from their new Project Galaxy, a BPMN-based BPMS (they call it a “business process platform”) based on Netweaver.  In the continuum of BPMS design environments, it’s clearly on the Lombardi-Appian end rather than the IBM-Oracle end.  I made the screenshots in my Flash mini-training on BPX from an early beta of the tool… it’s pretty nice.

Marco ten Vaanholt, head of the BPX community, and I did a webcast recently on ebizQ.  If you’re interested in this topic, I recommend it, along with my BPMN articles and free training on the BPX site.

Add comment March 5th, 2008

BEA State of the Market Survey

BEA recently completed a “thorough analysis” of the BPM market, based on analyst reports, articles, and customer surveys.  Some highlights, with my thoughts:

• BPM is one of the fastest-growing software markets, projected to go from $500 Million in 2006 to $6 Billion in 2011.  When I see $6 Billion I have to wonder what they’re counting, but yeah, it’s definitely moving.
• Rapidly consolidating, from 150 vendors in 2006 to 25 in 2007.  That’s just silly.  It was never 150, and it’s more than 25 today.  I would say the BPMS market is still ripe for consolidation, which hasn’t really happened yet.
• 65% of BPM solutions in BEA’s own survey integrate 3+ systems.  A good sign I agree.  Being BEA customers, though, I suspect that is well above the industry as a whole.
• Company politics and shortage of soft skills outweigh technical challenges.  I agree, for a SOA shop, BPM is a piece of cake technically.

There’s a nice explanation of the enterprise app silo problem.  I expect major redaction of this part once the Oracle deal closes.

Some nice data about market maturity.  Short version: it’s still early days, with most implementations at the departmental level, although 18% report “enterprise-wide BPM”.

In BEA’s own customer survey, the top-rated capability in BPMS selection was ease of use of the modeling/design environment.  I tend to focus on that one as well, and I think you’ll find that the leaders in the Gartner MQ and Forrester Wave tend to be those with slick business-oriented design tools.

BEA says BPMN is the only real standard in BPM, and has a nice picture of a BPMN diagram.  Now if only AquaLogic BPM would look like that…

BPM-SOA integration is an area where BEA has a leadership position.  Most of the SOA vendors don’t do BPM well, and most BPMS vendors either ignore SOA or try to make BPM and SOA the same thing.  A nice discussion of this in the report.

There is a great discussion of event-driven BPM, with appropriate kudos to BPMN for incorporating events in the process model.  ALBPM is pretty event-aware, compared to other BPMSs… now if they just used BPMN to express it!

Another good discussion of the intersection of collaboration and BPM.  This is another strength of BEA, based on great cross-pollination between Plumtree and Fuego acquisitions.  Their survey stats are surprising - not sure I believe it - claiming 91% of BEA customers incorporate collaborative activities in their processes: shared document review and production, team workspaces, and ad hoc tasks within a structured process.

Overall this is a very interesting report, and it’s free.

2 comments March 5th, 2008