Growing Rice in the Desert - the Garden of BPM

Apparently, I ticked off Bruce Silver.  In case you haven't heard of the fellow, as I had not, Bruce is a consultant who makes his living providing training on BPM tools and his advice on BPM products.  At least, that's the impression I got from reading an interview with him on the webzine ebizq.net.  What made this particular industry insider upset?  Well, I was willing to point out that the BPM emperor was wearing a thong ;-) and that is bad for business. 

[note to readers: I made a few updates to this blog entry about 12 hours after it was first published. The text added is enclosed in braces.]

Sorry, Bruce.  I do wish you the best of luck in your business, but I don't agree with you. 

Automated BPM is a useful and, at times, valuable tool.  To be clear, by "automated BPM," I'm referring to any modeling environment where a [business] user can create a visual model that represents a process (assumably a business process), where that [business] user can, from that environment, "implement" that process in such a way that it will execute.  I include a wide swath of tools in this description.

So let me repeat: Automated BPM can be valuable.  There are times when it clearly makes sense.  For those times, and for those companies, I'm sure that you will provide excellent services, and I wish you the best of luck.

However, the problem with BPM is this: [with the exception of the most trivial of workflow applications], the number of situations where that value rises above the cost and complexity of using BPM are comparatively small, compared to the other situations faced by most IT departments.  As a result, any IT department that wishes to delay an investment in [automated] BPM, because they need to first invest in data security, or network reliability, or application integration, or improved business efficiency, or better user experience, is well advised to do so, because most of those things will provide more value, in both the short and long term, than automated BPM.

Why do I say this?  Because the conditions needed for automated BPM to provide significant long-term flexibility are difficult to produce.  It's like growing rice in a desert.  You can do it, if you try.  You can set up some land, truck in sufficient topsoil, pipe in huge amounts of water, plant trees to protect your fields from sandstorms, and bring in labor that understands the growing of rice to tend to the crops.  You can do all that, and maybe you can sell some rice.   Not many do it. 

The conditions in most IT shops are comparable to the desert.  Information, even in the age of SOA and WOA, is still mostly hidden in silo apps, and functionality is still tied in to tightly coupled business systems where a 'call from the outside' will most often invoke complex 'downstream effects,' whether you want them or not.  Creating an environment where BPM is a good thing, where true flexibility is achieved, requires creating the fertile soil, and plentiful water, and ample shade, and skilled workers.  That is a worthwhile investment, for the companies with the wherewithal to make it, but not for everyone. 

Any company or consultant that fails to point this out is making an error of omission.  Show me a vendor [of this kind of tool] that is NOT making that error. 

So, Bruce, I'm sorry to be the person who points out that your market is valuable, but not earth-changing.   Don't fret: The world still needs rice.

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 11, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 11, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 12, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 12, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 12, 2008
  Touche' Bruce I have read many of the articles at BPMInstitute and will continue to do so.  I accept any suggestion to learn more, as I am always learning.  Thank you for being civil.  I endeavor to do the same. Your playback is interesting.  Perhaps if we had started with a little more logic and a little less emotion, we both would have seen common ground sooner. I know that you feel that I have not met your challenge to "show me the people saying these things."  To be fair, I've been involved in online discussions, of one kind or another, for over 15 years now (back to Compuserve days).  No challenge of that kind EVER ends up with either side actually learning or changing position.  So I did not take you up on it.   I hope you don't emerge from this exchange thinking that there are no people making that claim.  However, if I find citations for you, or draw that implication for you, then there is no value in it for either of us.  I encourage you to look around and see for yourself if that implication exists, directly or indirectly, in the words of industry vendors, consultants, and service providers.  I can open the door.  It is up to you to walk through. The reality is that it is impossible to truly automate a business process.  The tools allow us to remove a little waste, sometimes to great effect, but the overall coverage of automation over an enterprises processes is small.  The modeling part is valuable.  The analysis part... done by humans... is the part where the tools really produce value. I kinda think Evan is the middle ground here.  We both care about BPM, just from different viewpoints. --- N

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 14, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
  Hi Scott, Thank you for the detailed explanation of your intent when you say that BPM software makes things more reachable. I think we are still talking about two different things.  You are using a visual modeling environment to write software.  I don't have any problem with that.  I have a problem will calling the models "Business Processes."  They are not. I think you misunderstood my "umbrella" analogy.  If you had understood it, you'd say that "people are driving these BPM umbrellas to work every day." Microsoft has not altered my perception of BPM.  Microsoft, as a company, disagrees with me and agrees with you.   My reality is intact.  The BPMS software industry has told people to buy $25,000 umbrellas (made by Mazda) because they keep you dry.  I'm simply pointing out that it's a car.  The value is as transportation, not the 'umbrella-ness.'  Reading the work of other 'umbrella sellers' will educate me on the way to use the 'umbrellas' to haul a boat or drop Grandma off at the airport, but it won't change the absurdity of the situation. We should have visual programming languages.  I'm all for that.  I object to calling the programs "BPM models." --- Nick

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
  And as a follow-on... The value of BPM tools is often cited, especially in SOA circles, as flexibility.  Using a BPM suite, we can call SOA services in a flexible manner.  Now, we can change processes around far less expensively. I'm a proponent of that myself... but it's rice farming.  I agree, if you are in a nice, fertile, well-watered area.  But, if you are standing in the desert, perhaps you shouldn't be deciding on rice farming. And if you don't have a SOA infrastructure with services that are well designed, loosely coupled, and using a flexible and extensible canonical model, then you are not in a good place to get flexibility out of a BPM solution.  It becomes 'just another visual programming language.' -- N

• Anonymous
  July 16, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 16, 2008
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• Anonymous
  July 16, 2008
  I have nothing of substance to add to the BPM discussion other than to say thank you for the entertainment! It is nice to see the other IT people have passionate discussions about their beliefs and understandings about a subject!

• Anonymous
  July 18, 2008
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• Anonymous
  August 06, 2008
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• Anonymous
  August 06, 2008
  Hello brianfrew, You get no disagreement from me. It was enjoyable, coming back to this thread after a couple of weeks to re-read the flurry.  We spent most of our time arguing over the tiniest details, yet agreeing on the major points.   Funny, that. Isn't it always true, though, that the people who care the most about something are the ones who sometimes get into a toss-up over words?   Now, to get back to my process modeling... ---N

• Anonymous
  September 12, 2008
  Kudos to Andrea Westernein on her blog about the disjoint between the work that people do and business