BPM-EAI

So hypothesis here will be that BPM (which is really about the state of the management of the process) doesn’t really make a process structured or unstructured. But there is a shade or grey in everything so needless to say that practically it will be mix of different classes to deal with. It means that in the organizations, processes will have mixed characteristics of structured and unstructured and sometime even process will have both structured and unstructured (for example exception handling being unstructured in many cases) parts. Classical approach in BPM is a case of 2) and make it transition to 1). In this case, as I said, we are not really enhancing the ‘structure’ of the process per se, but we are managing it better. In complex transformation scenarios, we will possibly take a class of 4) and transition it to 1) but that’s a big leap. In that, danger is that we may land up in 2) instead. I can’t say with confidence if moving from 4) to 2) is better or more riskier, that’s matter of debate.

Today, general mindset is that unstructured has to be unmanaged and hence most of the time 4) is a starting point for unstructured processes. As we get to understand the nature of the unstructured processes (see my other blog on it: Unstructured business processes - creating differential BPM strategy is the wise thing to do), I find its better (BPM) strategy to move from 4) to 3) first which will provide sufficient capability/insight to be confidently move from 3) to 1). In simple terms, we should learn to manage the unstructured processes before we try to make them structured.

Taking example that Jacob shared in my previous blog: RFP management scenario. There are many unstructured segments of this process that can be moved from unmanaged state to managed state:

• Qualifying the RFP for response – while some RFP may be disqualified on the basis of well-defined policies/mandates, there may be RFPs where business sense will be used to reject them. There may not be any guidelines/policy defined to make those decision and it may not necessarily happen in the same manner every time the same scenario occurs (due to person dependency). So in a way, this is an unmanaged and unstructured process where depending on who is handling the RFP, decision will be made on the basis of the business sense of that person. Now transitioning this unmanaged part to managed part will mean identifying the variables of the situation and formulate the logic/rationale that has been used in past to make some of those decisions. Using that, RFP qualification process can be matured to include recommendations that can be quickly reviewed by the person qualifying. If he/she agrees to the recommendation, it is validation of the policy that was proposed and if it doesn’t, it needs to be captured to refine the policy design. Similarly, in some cases, person qualifying the RFP may refer the RFP to specialists and experienced business managers. That also could be happening in ad-hoc manner. When converting unmanaged state to managed state, such practices can be formalized as best practices and can be given as option to person performing qualification so that if person decides to do reference reviews, there is a framework for doing it (in this case, we could have list of subject matter experts and reference points being made available and also a workflow to perform such reviews).
• Pricing discounts to be given to client – there may be policies around discounts that can be offered but as we all now, depending on the criticality of the RFP and negotiation positioning, exception discounts could be applied. Here again, there may not be any well-structured guidelines. To convert it to managed state, we can start capturing the assessment input that went into deciding to raise the exceptional discount, policies or thought process that went into deciding the quantum change of the discount and associate the same with the variable of the RFP scenario and finally figuring out who were the additional players involved in the decision making and for what they were involved. With that, next time when such scenario happens, there is lot more help/support available to person taking decision on the exceptional discount.
• Managing time-crunched RFPs or  Managing situation of not having appropriate person available to handle/manage the RFP – in both of these cases, there is no process in most of the organizations that can predictably handle the outcome. In both the cases, manager will typically make a business call what to do (including the decision of dropping the RFP). So to manage the situation better, we should be able to capture the possibilities and have most recommended actions planned. Also, any possible support that person might need to execute the action plan in such situations should be integrated with the main process flow to enable the better execution of the process.

So in my other bloglet when I talked about the differential strategy of BPM, this is precisely what I meant:

• Part 1 of the strategy:  move a structured process from unmanaged state to managed state
• Part 2 of the strategy: move an unstructured process from unmanaged state to managed state