The service portfolio of a BPM center of excellence

A key concept for the centralized provision of Business Process Management (BPM) is the Center of Excellence (CoE). Organizations establish a CoE (aka BPM Support Office) as their BPM maturity increases in order to ensure a consistent and cost-effective way of offering BPM services. The definition of the offerings of such a center and the allocation of roles and responsibilities play an important role within BPM Governance. In order to plan the role of such a BPM CoE, this chapter proposes the productization of BPM leading to a set of fifteen distinct BPM services. A portfolio management approach is suggested to position these services. The approach allows identifying specific normative strategies for each BPM service, such as further training or BPM communication and marketing. A public sector case study provides further insights into how this approach has been used in practice. Empirical evidence from a survey with 15 organizations confirms the coverage of this set of BPM services and shows typical profiles for such BPM Centers of Excellence

Process forecasting: towards proactive business process management

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018. The digital economy is highly volatile and uncertain. Ever-changing customer needs and technical progress increase the pressure on organizations to continuously improve and innovate their business processes. The ability to anticipate incremental and radical process changes required in the future is a critical success factor. However, organizations often fail to forecast future business process designs and process performance. One reason is that Business Process Management (BPM) is dominated by reactive methods (e.g., lean management, traditional process monitoring), whereas there are only a few future-oriented approaches (e.g., process simulation, predictive process monitoring). This paper supports the shift towards proactive BPM by coining the notion of process forecasting – an umbrella concept for future-oriented BPM methods and techniques. We motivate the need for process forecasting by eliciting various types of process forecasting from BPM use cases and create a first understanding of its scope by providing a definition, a reference process, showing the steps to be followed in process forecasting initiatives, and a positioning against related BPM sub-areas. The definition and reference process are based on a structured literature review

The six core elements of business process management

The previous chapters gave an insightful introduction into the various facets of Business Process Management. We now share a rich understanding of the essential ideas behind designing and managing processes for organizational purposes. We have also learned about the various streams of research and development that have influenced contemporary BPM. As a matter of fact, BPM has become a holistic management discipline. As such, it requires that a plethora of facets needs to be addressed for its successful und sustainable application. This chapter provides a framework that consolidates and structures the essential factors that constitute BPM as a whole. Drawing from research in the field of maturity models, we suggest six core elements of BPM: strategic alignment, governance, methods, information technology, people, and culture. These six elements serve as the structure for this BPM Handbook