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2010 BPM and Workflow Handbook, Spotlight on Business Intelligence ReviewI was delighted to be invited by the Editor, Layna Fischer, to review the 2010 BPM Handbook. Having briefly skimmed through similar titles from previous years I was impressed with the breadth and coverage of the content and the quality of the information contained within. As someone who has witnessed at close range, the evolution of the BPM/Workflow `industry' over the last 18 years, I found the foreword by WfMC Technical Committee chair, Keith D. Swenson very much summed up the current situation in the BPM marketplace and emphasised how the term itself conveys different meanings to different factions within an organisation.This edition, majored on Business Intelligence, with nearly half of the content and opinion relating to BI technology and issues and contributions from a variety of different sources.
Linus Chow, Manoj Das and Peter Bostrom from Oracle kicked off with a look beyond the convergence of BPM and BI, which provided useful insight into the coming together of BPM, BI and related platforms and a look at what developments we are likely to see in the future. Their `Blurring Boundaries or Systematic Convergence' accurately depicts what appears to be happening in the BPM IT world, and does illustrate the daunting nature of building a BPM technology strategy. Being from Oracle, the article was understandably technical but did start to consider the challenges faced by the business community and put some context around the supporting technologies.
A much less technical article followed from Keith D. Swenson who looked at `Knowledge Work and Unpredictable Processes'. This was an interesting piece, which used lots of examples and metaphors to illustrate Keith's points. His summary concluded that BPM was not the right approach to unpredictable process but `Adaptive Case Management' ACM was. I have read articles and engaged in discussions on how collaborative processing, and contemporary technologies (Enterprise 2.0) address the same issue and I think the debate on this topic has some way to go.
We then had articles on Open Source BI, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Predictive BPM and Intelligent Automated Systems, all of which were informative and `in charge' of their subjects. Each took on a very different topic and presented clear and concise information and opinion, although in many cases I felt that the information wasn't entirely new and that some of the ideas had been implemented in sophisticated workflow systems some years ago.
Then came the piece on work assignment which was initially encouraging as it stressed the importantce of human processing and cited John Seely Brown's much used quote about people doing work not processes to emphasise the point. However as the article proceeded it became increasingly scientific and theoretical around the topic of work assignment. So much so, that towards the end, I couldn't help wondering whether it was all really necessary for something that really should be quite straightforward.
The next article, `Staying ahead of the curve with decision-centric business intelligence' by Sheila Donohue, was informative and well structured. The use of case studies, one from Fiat Auto Financial Services and others anonymously, served to add credibility and colour to the content.
The rest of the articles in section one continued on the same theme but also introduced topical ideas around case management, cloud computing and agile development techniques. Two articles on BPM in Healthcare were particularly informative about an industry which has to date been `behind the curve' in adopting BPM technologies.
Section 2 contained articles more generically aligned with the BPM topic, including ideas such as BPM on demand and Process as a Service. Both these topics have been around for a few years now and have struggled to get serious traction in the `BPM heartland' industries like Financial Services but it will be interesting to see how things go in the future. The largest article in the book was reserved for `Transforming Security Through Enterprise Architecture and BPM', which weighed in at 20 pages. This provided an in depth look at the subject and covered a wide spectrum, of security issues, but unless the topic is of particular interest, would probably be quite heavy going.
Section 3 then gave us the `Standards and Technology' articles which in general were in-depth discussion focussing on specific technical subjects such as XPDL and BPMN along with theoretical pieces on design patterns and process models.
Overall I found this publication informative and well structured and the articles reflect the evolution of the BPM community. I would recommend it to individuals who have a relevant background and interest. It is not and does not intend to be a `Dummy's Guide to BPM', but a forum of ideas, opinion and information useful for practitioners and organisations developing and maintaining a BPM strategy.
John Flynn
DST Global Solutions Ltd
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