The ABC’s of BPM

There’s a great piece up on Forbes right now, titled “The ABC’s of BPM.”

The article is part of the very well-informed “JargonSpy” series, whose goal is to educate the publication’s audience about the business value behind some of the technology world’s more opaque acronyms (let’s be honest, BPM isn’t exactly swimming in sex appeal is it?)

The author is Dan Woods, who is also the CTO at Evolved Media and the author of the book Process First: The Evolution of the Business Process Expert.

In the article, Dan talks in depth about the coming of age of the process expert, especially vis-à-vis the translation task that is “needed constantly between the business as it defines the process and the IT staff as it communicates what functionality is needed.”

Indeed, we’ve come a long way since Fredrick Winslow Taylor, who created some of the very first models of efficiency in the late 19^th century.

And I love the way that Dan puts it - that the most important quality in a process expert is a “sophisticated empathy for both business processes and technology to keep the flow of communication going between business and IT.”

It’s that “sophisticated empathy” that we at Lombardi spend every day cultivating - both in our people - and in our products themselves.

Here’s to continued recognition of the importance of BPM by the mainstream business press.