Aside from the iffy analogy to a Christmas classic, Clay Richardson, senior analyst at Forrester Research, delivered a pretty solid presentation on business process management. Richardson opened up the second and final day of Forrester Research’s Business Technology Forum in Chicago this week. The presentation focused on helping CIOs understand the “health” (Are you bloated? Lean? Anemic?) of their BPM process and best practices around how to get to that lean ideal we’ve been hearing so much about.

Richardson related BPM’s progression to that of Charles Dicken’s infamous character Ebenezer Scrooge and walked us through the ghost of BPM’s past, present, and future. The analogy didn’t quite work, however, since Scrooger’s “Ghost of Ye to Come” was really about what would happen if Scrooge didn’t change (poor Tiny Tim!), whereas Richardson’s ghost of BPM future paints an ambitious picture of what companies should be striving for.

The ghost of BPM past forgot the people part of the equation. As Richardson pointed out, even business engineering leader Michael Hammer, author of (surprise) Reengineering the Corporation (2003), admitted, after having made millions off of his philosophy, “I was insufficiently appreciative of the human dimension — I’ve learned that’s critical.”

As a result, we’re here with the ghost of BPM present — one confused and overwhelmed with too much information (more specifically, 10,300+ process consultants; 2,200+ BPM-related books; 100+ BPM suites and tools; and 25+ BPM certification programs). To this, Richardson joked that the industry was “schizophrenic” and in need of its therapist.

The ghost of the future looked far more positive: front-line workers and customers who are empowered to build toward a specific value. (Would it have been more effective to use scare tactics and show how business would be if they didn’t improve their BPM practices? Would it look something like this?)

Anyway, according to a recent Forrester survey, 66 percent of SMB and enterprise professionals say that BPM is a top priority, and yet in a survey of technology professionals, only 1 percent report that their BPM budgets have increased. With new lean principles, however, Richardson speaks of changes that will validate the need for BPM and allow its success to perpetuate further investment. The shift toward a lean future as he described should look as follows:

• standardized processes will become flexible;
• measurement based on return on investment (ROI) will become focused on value;
• waterfall software development models will become Agile; and
• on-premises will move to the cloud — albeit, starting with smaller requirements that save money, reduce cost, but increase value.

Similar to how Richardson needed a “game plan” to improve his golf skills, companies need a plan to diagnose their problem areas and work on a custom approach to improving their “game.” Technologists must therefore determine where they land on the “fit-to-purpose” scale: bloated, lean, or anemic. BMI’s may be a ratio of your weight to height, but Richardson’s Lean Process Improvement (LPI) chart plots strategic intent (purpose, empowerment) against approach (methodology, roles). The equation, too, for Richardson’s fit-to-purpose scale is a little more complex than just entering your physical stats (You need to use Forrester’s BPM scorecard assessment, which should be on their Web site, but I couldn’t find it). In any case, here’s the equation: LPI^2 = (approach/strategic intent)*10 (If you score <10, anemic; 10-20, lean; and >20, bloated).

For those that are bloated, eat less (i.e., focus on your top four to five initiatives and eliminate waste from your technology portfolio). If you’re anemic, get some nutrients (i.e., beef up your process governance and get the support you need for your high strategic initiatives). Then again, all of this is just to point you in the general direction because one of the major lessons of being lean is the fact that one size doesn’t fit all: tailor the process methodology, assess skill gaps, and empower the business.