When an enterprise is looking at deploying a Business Process Management (BPM) solution, there is a sharp tendency to have the project led by the IT department. Sadly, this creates several issues which must be successfully addressed if BPM is to be successfully implemented by the organization. A very huge concern is that the people who know and understand the business processes, and the future To Be state, are in fact not the IT department, but the people manning business operations.
The problem which is created is that IT has to interpret what business operations actually need, and then must tackle the issue of how to make the technology work to implement the desired processes. This is highly labor intensive, and requires a great deal of development time, however this precludes any form of continuous improvement being achieved due to the delay in changing instituted processes.
This also presumes that business operations actually gets what they were looking for in the first instance, with many BPM deployments failing because IT could not deliver what was actually required. The business then is made to suit the technology, rather than the technology supporting and molding itself to what the business processes really are or should be.
The solution is to move to a low code or Lean BPM solution, which provides significant advantages and benefits over the traditional provides, such as IBM, Oracle or Pega Systems. A major advantage of Lean BPM solutions is that they free business operations from the IT department, which I relegated firmly to a supporting, marginal role.
Business operations then has the power to not only design business processes, but also to execute them without the need for heavy coding and development expertise.
By allowing business operations a software tool which they control, without the need for specialist dev input, they are now free to do what they do best – handle business process design, execution and optimization.
By being able to create workflows and processes on the fly, typically using a visual workflow UI. If you can draw a process on a piece of paper, then you can use a drag-and-drop GUI to create a workflow in a Lean BPM software tool. In some instances, Lean BPM solutions are so advanced that you can then have the tool push your design live without the need for coding.
The BPM software will automate the workflow and business processes you have designed, creating and populating the tasks, in accordance with the rules and procedures you have preset.
More than this, you can change workflows by simply dragging and dropping the required items in the workflow automation UI. In addition, a full audit trail will be maintained, which is indispensable for compliance and regulatory purposes – indispensable in today’s business environment.
Lean BPM (also known as Low Code in some circles) also can be deployed within days, and typically it takes less than a week for operational workflows to become live and used in the real-world. Finally, Lean BPM solutions tend to cost around a quarter of a traditional BPM solution and are available in both SaaS and On Premises versions.
Jane Wrythe is a business and technology freelance writer, and she is currently reviewing Lean BPM solutions for JobTraQ.