Business Process Management

BPM

The Business Process Management (BPM) capability is the ability to identify, design, document, monitor, optimize, and assist in the execution of both existing and new organizational processes. The Business Process Management (BPM) capability covers:

Implementing process improvement initiatives and driving cultural change for business process improvement.
Selecting, developing, and applying methods, governance models, technologies, skills, roles, and communication materials that support management of the organization's processes.
Developing and applying graphical representations of processes—for example, process architecture diagrams.
Adopting technologies that automate and assist with the execution of business process management.

Structure

BPM is made up of the following Categories and CBBs. Maturity and Planning are described at both the CC and the CBB level.

AFoundation

Defines how to establish business process management strategy, and stimulate development of enabling standards, methods, models, technologies, training, and communication approaches.

A1Strategy and Leadership: Establish strategies and plans to lead the development of process management activities.
A2Support Organization and Personnel: Establish the structure, competences, roles, responsibilities, and resource levels to support process improvement activities.
A3Standards and Methods: Establish a set of standards and methods for managing processes. These could include modelling standards, process notations, definitions of terminology to be used, improvement methods, process governance structures, and measures for determining value and the effectiveness of implementation.
A4Technologies: Identify and implement technologies for documenting, organizing, and evaluating process improvements.
A5Stakeholder Management: Generate understanding, motivation, and commitment to process management. This may include communication about process management approaches, success stories, lessons learned, potential value opportunities, and value realized.

BImplementation

Determines and manage how business process management will be put into practice for the organization.

B1Scope of Implementation: Establish the breadth of processes to be managed. This is guided by the organizational context—for example, by the structure, strategies, priorities, and culture of the organization.
B2Process Architecture: Document the organization's process architecture, using consistent terminology, precise definition of objectives, roles, flows, and relationships, and agreed protocols for process naming.
B3Process Governance: Establish a governance structure for the processes being addressed. This might cover process ownership, decision rights, and measures to evaluate progress against process objectives.
B4Process Improvement: Identify and use available methodologies for evaluating, redesigning, and improving how the organization works towards its desired outcomes.
B5Process Automation: Use technologies to simulate, integrate, operationalize, and monitor business processes.
B6The IT Contribution: Use the IT function's organization-wide perspective to drive the effectiveness of business process management.

Overview

Goal

The Business Process Management (BPM) capability helps create an understanding of business activity flows so that they can be more readily understood and developed, and so that errors can be reduced and risks mitigated.

Objectives

Enable the organization to be more capable of change.
Drive a holistic approach to process improvement using a cross-functional and organization-wide perspective.
Correct and improve complex, people-intensive processes before (potentially) automating them.
Support a better understanding of processes and their objectives, which in turn leads to a more reliable and efficient execution of these processes.
Provide graphical representations of processes to facilitate more effective discussion and collaboration between process performers, and between performers and managers.
Make the strategic objectives of the organization more explicit and visible (for example, reliability and efficiency, product or service quality, business agility, and so on).

Value

The Business Process Management (BPM) capability helps to make business activity flows more effective, more efficient, and more responsive to evolving business objectives.

Relevance

Business environments are becoming increasingly turbulent and unpredictable, driven by many different factors, including, for example, changing customer needs, globalization of supply chains, new business models, innovative and disruptive technologies, and so on. In cases where organizational processes span functional departments, these challenges can be even greater—especially if the processes are not visible across departments and where it is not clear who owns each process. To compete successfully, organizations must find ways to respond quickly, adopting, changing and upgrading their processes to align with evolving business requirements. There are countless examples showing significant gains when an organization implements a business process management programme¹²³.

By establishing an effective Business Process Management (BPM) capability, an organization can make work less costly, design more sustainable processes that are flexible and easier to change, increase speed to market, embed a culture of continuous improvement, and deliver better returns from organizational resources.

Scope

Definition

Implementing process improvement initiatives and driving cultural change for business process improvement.
Selecting, developing, and applying methods, governance models, technologies, skills, roles, and communication materials that support management of the organization's processes.
Developing and applying graphical representations of processes—for example, process architecture diagrams.
Adopting technologies that automate and assist with the execution of business process management.

Improvement Planning

Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)

Representative POMs are described for BPM at each level of maturity.

2Basic

Practice
Evaluate appropriate business process management technologies for the organization.
Outcome
The need for coordinated approaches towards the use of business process management technologies emerges to enable greater levels of sharing and reuse.
Metric
Number of initiatives complying with a preferred suite of business process management technologies.
Practice
Define owners for some of the highest priority processes.
Outcome
There is increased accountability for managing the most critical business processes.
Metric
Percentage of business-critical processes with defined owners.
Practice
Establish a process improvement practice—such as Lean, Six Sigma, or Total Quality Management.
Outcome
Effectiveness in the application of a process improvement methodology gradually increases, and frequent tactical improvements in organizational performance are delivered.
Metric
The aggregated value of process improvement projects.

3Intermediate

Practice
Form a business process management governing body with employees from multiple business units to track metrics and milestones.
Outcome
A business process management capability is established with appropriate accountability and oversight.
Metric
Percentage of business units represented on the business process management governing body.
Practice
Create a business process management community of practice that is accountable for the development of business process management.
Outcome
There is improved sharing of proven practices, and deepening of skills.
Metric
Number of relevant personnel belonging to a business process management community of practice.
Practice
Ensure that process improvement projects that span multiple business units have the backing of senior management and are adequately resourced.
Outcome
Process improvement projects generate significant value for the organization.
Metric
The value created from process improvement projects as a percentage of organizational costs (or revenues).

4Advanced

Practice
Promote the process improvement strategy organization-wide.
Outcome
An organization-wide focus can be prioritized over local or functional priorities, yielding higher value returns.
Metric
Percentage of process improvement initiatives spanning multiple business units.
Practice
Establish a central business process management support group to take organization-wide responsibility for standards, methods, and models, and so on.
Outcome
A common set of practices for driving process improvement becomes deeply embedded in the culture of the organization.
Metric
Percentage of business process initiatives that use a common set of practices.
Practice
Ensure that all relevant processes are owned and managed.
Outcome
Process ownership and accountability across the organization help eliminate and/or reduce bottlenecks, poor hand-offs, and so on.
Metric
Percentage of relevant processes with assigned ownership.
Practice
Take a portfolio approach to process improvement so that individual process improvement projects are prioritized and sequenced by reference to the entire portfolio or suite of process improvement projects.
Outcome
The organization's process improvement portfolio is designed to deliver optimal financial and strategic value, and is considered a major contributor to business value.
Metric
Year-on-year improvements in return on investment (ROI) from the process improvement portfolio.

5Optimized

Practice
Make knowledge of business processes a core competency for all managers.
Outcome
Managers understand business process management and know how to derive value from it.
Metric
The business process management training and experience levels of managers.
Practice
Manage and continually improve processes that involve relevant business ecosystem partners.
Outcome
Process management and optimization beyond the boundaries of the organization deliver recognizable competitive advantages.
Metric
Number of agreements with third parties for integrated management of processes.
Practice
Regularly review how the portfolio of process improvement opportunities can influence the development of the business model.
Outcome
The organization can articulate the strategic value of its process improvements.
Metric
Number of independently verified process improvements or innovations that raise the organization's performance for a given function.

Reference

History

This capability was introduced in Revision 16 as a new critical capability.

It was deprecated in Revision 19.01, being updated by Business Process Management (19.01).