The New BPM: Business Outcomes with Governance

Process management, in the past, almost assured good governance because all the possible paths were thought out and planned ahead of time. With advent of agile BPM and adaptive case management, not all combinations of outcomes can be planned. This calls for processes to be equipped with boundaries to make sure governance can be assured. This puts a new premium on business rules used as constraints to keep processes from going "out of bounds"

Staying in Bounds:

The challenge with goal driven processes leveraging, process instances or cases, is that they can stray off into dangerous territory, from a governance perspective. This is where constraints or boundaries are necessary to find a perfect balance. Business rules play a different role in process management in this case. In traditional process management, rules provide strict control over the directions that a process can go. In "the New BPM" rules now provide for bumper guards for processes to stay in bounds while pursuing the dynamic goals and the dynamic paths that can be created.

Dealing With Real Time Change Over Time:

With the acceleration of the speed of change afforded by "The New BPM", the importance of constraint based rules accelerate, so "trip indicators" are employed to highlight reasons to leverage reactive changes. Wise organizations plan scenarios that might require the changing of the out of bounds conditions to meet emerging conditions. Quite often wide ranging analysis leveraging big data and simulation is used for this kind of planning. Rules and triggers for changing scenarios can be inventoried and structured for future actions. Kind of a "war games" for process outcomes.

Net; Net:

Dynamic, adaptable and agile processes are beneficial for chasing the best balance of business outcomes, but there are new dangers to avoid with these new and powerful processes. "The New BPM" will require new methods and techniques as well as technologies. Look to leading organizations and thought leaders to help you in your journey with these powerful processes.