BPM benefits such as enhanced operational efficiency and compliance derive largely from the way it breaks down routine office work into specific tasks performed in a prescribed order according to explicit rules. The process design assigns each task to some role or group, while administrators manage the mapping of individuals to those roles and groups at runtime. This allows the BPMS process engine to route tasks to users in the prescribed sequence and notify appropriate managers and supervisors when those tasks are overdue. In this way, instances of the process are handled consistently and efficiently, according to established policies and procedures, enforced by rules, and everything is auditable end to end.
But sometimes such rigidly defined structure gets in the way. Some activities in the process are not best performed by a single assigned user, but require a group working collaboratively. Moreover, the subtasks in this activity cannot be defined in advance by the process designer, but depend on circumstance at runtime. The collaborative activity may involve shared editing of a document, or live and threaded discussions, and generally leads to some final decision or work product.
Such unstructured work is not antithetical to BPM. On the contrary, BPM works best when ad hoc collaboration and rule-based structure can be combined in the process, adding flexibility without losing control or auditability. Today, several BPMS vendors are stepping up to the challenge.
One form of collaboration-enabled BPM comes from vendors with a background in content management, where the collaboration typically centers around group editing and discussion of a document, such as a report, a budget, or a contract. BPMS offerings like EMC Documentum Process Suite and FileNet BPM (now part of IBM) support the creation of online collaboration team rooms – web sites that can be set up on the fly to host the collaboration. Other offerings, like Global 360 Enterprise, leverage the Microsoft SharePoint environment for this purpose. All three of these work in the same basic way: The structured business process can create the room, populate it with tasks, data, and documents, and invite participants. Within the team activity, participants can perform these tasks, add others as needed, author and edit documents, and collaborate via web conferencing, instant messaging, and threaded discussions. Once the activity is complete, the resulting artifacts can be incorporated back in the structured process.
Another form of collaboration enablement is occurring via the BPMS work portal. Originally little more than an inbox for structured process tasks, BPMS work portals are morphing into environments where assigned task performers can invite others to collaborate on task completion, again via shared data and documents, instant messaging and discussion threads. For example, in its upcoming 6.0 release BEA AquaLogic BPM will be leveraging the AquaLogic (formerly Plumtree) portal in this fashion, and Savvion Business Manager 7.0 will be doing something similar with its own work portal.
Finally, what could represent the next generation of collaborative process portals avoids BPM conventions almost entirely. Webex Connect extends the familiar Webex web conferencing platform to support ad hoc team collaboration based on Web 2.0 mashup technology. Under the hood is the Cordys BPM engine, allowing users to augment unstructured team collaboration with structured process automation behind the scenes.
All of these developments herald a more mature BPM technology stack, one that does not force process participants into unnatural acts in order to conform to a rigid rule-based structure. The next generation is extending the model to include unstructured activities and ad hoc team collaboration, without losing the ability to track and manage the process end to end.
