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Shakespeare wrote so many great metaphors for the software industry; its as
if he grew up in the dotcom era. One play that comes to mind in the BPM space is
A Comedy of Errors. Specifically, this storyline paints a great picture of the
confusion which many customers are experiencing as they understand BPM (business
process management), BPEL (business process execution language), and SOA
(service oriented architecture).
People confuse the business-centric perspective, which BPM is supposed to
bring to the enterprise, with the IT-centric perspective, which SOA and BPEL
embody.
A Closer Look
That distinction is vital to understanding the role that BPM should play in
your business. Successful BPM strategies put the focus on business process
improvement first, and the role of technology and systems second. As such BPM is
inherently people-centric, not because people are human computers to be
orchestrated in the same way as Web services, but because people are the only
ones who fundamentally understand what makes certain processes work and others
not.
Not to say that the IT-centric perspective isnt important for what it is.
SOA is in effect good corporate IT hygiene; making components and services
reusable is an important requirement for enterprise IT agility and cost savings.
BPEL also fills a useful IT role in integrating disparate Web services to
accomplish things like sharing customer information between one system and
another.
Why the Errors?
The comedy of errors occurs when business people expect to be able to
personally use their BPEL-enabled SOA infrastructures to magically change the
way they do business today. BPM is designed for business people but SOA and BPEL
are not. The tools, methodologies, best practices even the corporate cultures
of truly BPM enabled companies are different than those solely focused on BPEL
and SOA.
The responsibility for this confusion sits squarely on the shoulders of
software vendors. Instead of asking our prospects to step back for a minute and
consider what they are trying to do, and the cultures they wish to adopt in
their businesses for process improvement, each vendor immediately tries to cram
his own approach down prospects throats. Everyones spin is a little different
because everyone is trying to sell ones own wares.
So how should you evaluate the different approaches and ascertain which is
best for you? What is the appropriate role for BPEL & SOA in your BPM enabled
enterprise?
There is, in effect, an IT waterline below that business people just arent
interested in. This is not the same thing as the much touted business / IT gap
(a source of another great Shakespeare metaphor, Much Ado About Nothing).
Rather, its a level of technology detail about which most business people,
while capable of understanding, are happy to leave in the hands of
techno-weenies (no offense intended, but thats how the waterline is defined).
Start from the assumption that business people shouldnt have to worry about
anything below the waterline.In our experience, this includes your companys SOA
strategy, individual application architectures, network design etc. If your IT
organization has chosen BPEL as the best methodology for orchestrating Web
services, it should also be relatively transparent to the business.
Role Differs from Look
Above the waterline sits your companys overall objectives, the strategies
which are used to meet those objectives, and finally BPM. BPM creates a common
business language for people to collaborate on process improvement ideas. In
some implementations, BPM provides facilities for people above the waterline
to create their own process driven applications. In other implementations, it is
a detailed specification mechanism designed to streamline ITs traditional role
of owning application development. Both approaches workyou need to pick the
one closest to the realities of your corporate experience.
Shakespeares comedies usually have happy endings. In the Comedy of Errors,
everyone eventually figures out whats been going on, and, if you will, everyone
lives happily ever after. Lets all try to recognize that while on the surface
many of the process centric acronyms look the same (BPM, BPEL, SOA), their
fundamental role in the enterprise is different, and appropriate to different
visions of creating agile business process driven applications.
Kaushal Mashruwala
The author is managing director-India, Savvion
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