Mobile & a customer focus change the BPM game

A customer doesn’t see your technology when they interact with you, they see your process. They don’t know or care that you’re using Ruby or PHP, and they don’t know your compliance requirements. Customers see and feel the pleasure or pain of your business process management abilities.

BPM’s two forks

But there’s a dissonance in BPM because its purpose for many (some would say its roots) has been connected to efficiency (Lean) and defect elimination (Sig Sigma). Each has been so much the “voice” of BPM since the 1980′s that it would be easy to think customer experience isn’t part of BPM as Six Sigma focuses on consistency and not customer needs and Lean is typically internally-focused. People will argue this, but both are fundamentally the wrong path for customer focus.

Both Lean and Six Sigma could arguably be called inside-out methods in a world where more and more discussion is about outside-in. Not surprising with their manufacturing roots.

The other part of BPM

There’s another entire part of BPM that is focused on optimization of work processes through automation technology while retaining flexibility and the ability to innovate. This is the part of BPM that has an enormous potential to respond to the Age of the Customer. The Age of the Customer is driven by technology changes that put enormous computing power in the hands of the customer through mobile devices and the Web. BPM systems are no longer part of the back office and accessible only through employees doing everyday work. This process transparency is the new challenge of BPM.

A new design focus

In a recent interview with bpm.com‘s Peter Schooff, Forrester Analyst Clay Richardson spelled out his views on experience design and business process management:

So we took a close look at the impact of mobile on business process management and what we walked away with was it really requires more front-end experience design work. As we look at BPM it shifts more to front end design and designing tasks for convenience, as opposed to back office optimization. So this focus on design has really recast BPM more to a convenience and front-end engagement standpoint than the traditional back office optimization perspective. This is a really big shift that we’re seeing in the market

Richardson makes a great point — while BPM’s purpose for quite a while has been to create efficiency inside companies, the rising expectations of consumers and mobile technology changes the game. The trends call for BPM to create customer satisfaction through a better experience across a company’s touch points (which are expanding every day).

Skill sets

With these changes come a change in techniques and skills required. Richardson acknowledges that Lean and Six Sigma aren’t the sought after skills, but instead the focus is on design thinking. The design isn’t as end-to-end as the old BPM ways, and the focus becomes more on specific points of process. The second thing Richardson talked about is the need for empathy with the client experience, “Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes.” Personas and journey maps are the new techniques that track interaction rather than simply efficiency. This is bigger than a process model and instead is about understanding what triggers process in the customer’s mind.

Editor’s note: Take the time to read the transcript of Clay Richardson’s interview here.