Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 38)

The past five years, BPM software evolved from its early roots in workflow to more comprehensive “pureplay” software that offers graphical process design, process automation, process monitoring and reporting capabilities for human-centric processes. Pure-play BPM software has delivered strong results for organizations worldwide and has helped drive more interest in BPM. However, during this transition, the enterprise application integration providers have continued to address the need for complex integration and automation of system-based processes, while business intelligence providers have continued to meet corporate performance management needs, and business process analysis vendors have catered to organizations with more advanced process modeling and simulations. While all are critical to business success, this technology market segmentation poses a challenge for buyers and IT organizations to purchase multiple applications and then piece them together. It’s a cost, time and maintenance headache. This has led several of the leading pure-play BPM vendors to take the lead in expanding their solutions to encompass all of these areas — providing what has become known as a BPM Suite (BPMS). A true BPMS allows CIOs to address the full, roundtrip process life cycle for both human-centric and system-based processes with a single, integrated solution from a single vendor. The life cycle includes modeling, integration, automation, management, monitoring, analysis, simulation and have risen dramatically. People not only want the privacy and security protections that are part of the government mission, they also have come to insist on the same efficiency, convenience and service orientation that they experience in their dealings with private-sector companies. Added to this are the internal pressures on government to break down informational silos and enhance cooperation and collaboration across agencies — sharing information, coordinating activities and presenting a unified view to the public. How to Use BPM in Government Departments and agencies can use BPM for a number of process-centric demands: • streamlining operations by automating manual, repetitive processes; • increasing efficiency and productivity of operations; • using existing systems and data to provide Web-enabled solutions; • improving cross-agency, citizen and employee services via online access; • complying with legislative mandates to improve citizen access and reduce complexity; and • tracking and managing correspondence to ensure action within mandated time frames. There are several critical success factors in order to implement BPM as part of a CIO’s overall IT strategy. First, CIOs Public CIOs must adopt technology that streamlines systems, improves processes and increases visibility and collaboration. improvement — with the goal being to create the agility needed to continually repeat this cycle and fine-tune and optimize a business in near real time. By supporting the big picture, BPMS lets the public sector: • understand the agency’s underlying dynamics, collaborate to ensure the pieces fit together and create agility within the overall enterprise strategy and architecture; • map out an end state that maximizes the effectiveness of key business processes, intertwined with other enterprise assets, to achieve strategic objectives; and • execute optimized, effective processes with cross-functional transparency and the flexibility to adapt and implement new ideas quickly. Federal, state and local governments have been early adopters of BPM and BPMS for several interrelated reasons. Citizens demand satisfaction, and their expectations need to procure the budget needed for implementation. Once this is achieved, they must determine the scope of process needs. Some questions to answer during this step: • What are your most critical processes? • How many of them are human-centric versus system-centric? • What are your scalability requirements for the number of processes, locations and geographic deployments? • How complex is your IT infrastructure? What platforms do you need to interoperate with to be successful? Is achieving a service-oriented architecture part of your overall strategy? • What are your short-term versus long-term process needs? CIOs must include people from both the business side and the IT side of their organization early on in the scope definition and in the BPM suite evaluation and selection process; both parties are critical to any BPM project’s success. [38]

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009

Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009 Contents Contributors Introduction Tense Times Insider Threat Twenty and Counting Labor of Love Putting Process Into Play Crossover Appeal FastGov CIO Central Security Adviser CIOs Pluck BlackBerry Phones From the Field Straight Talk

Public CIO - December 2008/January 2009

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