Trends in BPM

On Friday morning I left Geldrop for the Conference "Trends in BPM" in the picturesque town Hoevelaken. The theme this year was "Samenwerken in de keten: mens, methodes en impact" (Collaboration within the chain: people, methods and impact). It was held in the Koninginnestraat 1 at Intres. It was a very long street and each traffic sign said "1 straight ahead", but in the end the street ended and no nr 1 was found. Also not Intres. When I drove the whoel street for the third time and asked three people for Intres and nr 1, i finally parked my car at Euretco. I went inside to the reception and asked where i could find Intres. It appeared that the name Intres was renamed to Euretco, so in fact i was at the correct place! Maybe a hint to write the correct name on the invitations !?

So I went inside and soon noticed that i was a little bit underdressed. This was my own fault, because most of the times these conferences are packed with suits. But nevertheless I went into the first session hoping to hear which direction BPM is going ...

Pascal Ravesteijn opened the event with a survey of an investigation that was held under >100 people, on the maturity of BPM within organisations. The conclusion was that the maturity was decreased in comparison with 2010. Due to crisis or more focus on BPM maturity of organisations? He could not tell, but this was the fact. After this the sessions began ...

Optimalisatie door diversiteit in standaardisatie
(Optimization through diversity within standardization)

The first session was a case in which Ton Arrachart (CIO of Oord Dredging & Marne) told about the challenges he faces within the world of Dredging. The story was about standards used within the processes especially when it comes to the security of his employees. Furthermore the standardization of the ships, because this way ships can be build faster and employees can change between ships, because of procedures and processes on the ships are the same. 

Gezamenlijk sturen op gedeelde informatie, simpel toch?
(Steering together by using shared information, easy right?)

This session held by Bas van der Raadt (Senior ICT Architect at Schiphol Group), was about a CDM system build by EuroControl. CDM stands for Collaborative Decision Making. The system helps in coordinating the planes within the European air. The process looks fairly simple, but there were a lot of challenges, for example:

• The interpretation or definition of the terms used within the field are not always the same within companies. For example: A flight. For KLM this meant the whole route from beginning to the end (with stops in between). Within the context of Schiphol it is just the incoming and outgoing of the plane.
• Political issues
• Involving the right people

Within the process there are milestones defined, which are important for the process on which is steered.

Hoe blijf je in controle over je process?
(How to stay in control of your process)

This session (held by Tom Kastelein) was about a new banking concept (knab). It is a new bank build from the ground and with the client in the lead. He told about the process of vision towards real implementation of the concept. By selecting the right people, with the right mindset and innovation, they managed to build up a new banking company with a different approach. Within lies a BPM architecture that makes it possible to automate a lot of client processes. For example they claim to register a new customer within 3 minutes, by the use of this BPM platform.

After this session we had a break with the usual coffee and soda's. After the break we started off with an enthusiastic session.

In control met regelbeheersing
(In control with business rules)

This session was held by Mark Mastop (Chief Innovation Officer, Aquima). Aquima was one of the sponsors of this event (thanks !). The talk was about how organizations can be flexible by centralizing its business rules, so that these rules are made traceable. This way the business rules become far more transparent and can be easily changed, so that the company can be flexible.

He talked about Decision Modeling Notation, a standard for describing business rules.

Furthermore in the new produkt version of Aquima, they are going to work together with James Taylor who is a known figure within the DMN field. See also on the LinkedIn group to follow discussions on this subject.

Software is Eating the World

Software is anywhere. That was the statement of Marco van Heerde en Wilbert Baan. They had an inspiring session that software is eating the world. They also states that we are living in a network society. Joi Ito has written down 9 principles for this new way of living.

These principles look like the Agile Manifesto :-)

They showed some very interesting websites like:

• Kickstarter (A crowd funding site on which you can place an idea that can be funded by the crowd)
• Scanadu (You own personal house dokter)
• 23andme (where you can investigate your own DNA)
• Nike's Fuelband (keeps track of walking/running information)

This presentation (again) showed that we as people/client are becoming in control.

After this presentation I left the building and went for a nice diner at De Foep.

In this nice setting I thought about the conference and this is what I thought:

• Some nice customer cases were presented using BPM
• Not many new insides into the direction of BPM
• Very inspiring session about Software is everything
• Curious to see how BPM will fit within the new 21rst century, in which people are more and more in control in which (i think), standard processes will disappear and social collaboration, and internet of things is the future. These internet of things will be available anytime and anywhere.