The Future of BPM

That was the title of the guest lecture of Prof.Dr. Jan Mendling which he delivered at the University of Hasselt (Belgium). Given my preference for the topic of BPM I couldn't decline the invitation to visit this guest lecture. In a very swift and transparent manner the audience was taken through a number of fundamental concepts surrounding BPM. The ones that struck me most were:

1. The Dynamic model of process and product innovation (Utterback & Abernathy, 1975)

This model suggests that in initial stages of development of a product, the innovative emphasis is placed on product innovation. In later stages this is replaced by process innovation of processes linked to or supporting the product.

2. Devil's quadrangle

I typically use the Devil's triangle, which depicts a delicate balance between costs, quality and speed (you can have 2, but never all 3 at the same time), but professor Mendling actually showed a fourth dimension (being Flexibility) that made it even broader applicable. 

3. The Process Redesign Orbit

In this fundamental model, three sets of axes are defined that categorize a number of different process improvement methodogies. The first set of axes is Creative versus Analytical, the second set is Transformation versus Transactional and the last set is Inward looking versus Outward looking. Next, he showed how a long list of process improvement methods can be distributed over the different combinations of the 3 axes. For example, the NESTT methodology is characterized as Creative, Transformational and Outward looking. I have to admit that this was a very eye opening way of looking at process improvements. 

The next big chunk is his guest lecture was to talk about a number of new developments in process implementation and he specifically talked about CMMN and DMN. CMMN stands for Case Management Modeling Notation and DMN stands for Decision Modeling Notation and both are derived from and can be combined with the already famous BPMN (2.0) notation. CMMN offers more flexibility when it comes to processes that are centered around cases in stead of, for example, continuous production processes. DMN is a method of structuring (and potentially automate) the process of decision making and by doing so being able to incorporate it in a company's process model library. Banks and insurers already use DMN in their anti-fraud departments. 

When you look to a typical process (or its process model) you can imagine it as a sequential series of hand offs between two operators (a role that execute one activity in a process). Professor Mendling argued that more and more we also see hand offs within one role (for example having to switch between applications in order to fullfil one activity). Also here lies an improvement potential by streamlining the "how" of a single role in a process. 

Another interesting topic that Professor Mendling touched upon is the BPM maturity model. You can idenftiy 6 different topics within BPM maturity that all need to be aligned if a company would like to benefit optimally from its BPM efforts. These 6 are Strategic Alignment, Governance (together they form the Formal structure), Methods, IT, People and Culture (these last two make up the informal structure). Very often, companies approach BPM from the Methods and IT angle, but fail to address the formal and informal structures properly. 

Finally, Professor Mendling offered a glimps into the future of BPM and his talk centered around three concepts:

1. Computerization of tasks

2. Computerization of Coordination

3. Computerization of Process Design

In the first concept, we were presented with the model of Autor/Levy/Murmane (who studied the skill content of recent technological change in 2003). They divided tasks over 2 axes: routine versus non-routing and cognitive (requiring thinking) versus Manual. At this point in time, computerization focuses strongly on the routing cognitive tasks (for instance learning who to mulitply or divide numbers), and already computerization is venturing into the routing manual tasks (for example waiting tables in a restaurant) and the non-routine cognitive tasks (for example writing a poem). We already have computerized music composers. 

How about the boundaries for computerization then? Here, three boundaries were presented and the first is perception and manupilation (it is still challenging to mass computerize things like finger dexterity), the second boundary is creative intelligence (for instance the fine arts) and the third boundary is social intelligence (the art of persuasion). The real question is: how long will these boundaries hold (or: do we even want to have these boundaries and what could be the moral dimension to go along with this discussion)?

With regard to the computerization of Coordination, the example of Blockchain came up (and this was to be expected), in particular the possibilities of smart contracts based on blockchain technology.

The last concept was that of computerization of process design and here Don Norman's 7 principles for designing for user were presented, followed by the applicability and possibilities of process mining in order to be and stay aligned with the process on paper and the actual process execution. A process model typically looks very straight forward, but when you feed your ERP's log file into a process mining tool and let that tool show you what actually happened, it will be a vastly more complicated picture, but one that you can learn a great deal from. It provides with almost instantaneous improvement opportunities and highlights process bottlenecks within minutes. 

The key here is Innovative Task Restructuring (Frey / Osbourne, 2017) where the extent of computerization within the 21st century will thus partly depend on innovative approaches to task restructuring. 

I would like to thank Profession Mendling for his inspiring guest lecture, it was time very well spend.