BPM Babylonia – Comparing BPA and BPMS is like comparing apples and oranges

I absoutely agree. The problem is however that the abstract world modeled in ARIS has nothgin to do with reality and can typcially not implemented. If you model a company all the way in ARIS, by the time your done it is obsolete and by the time you implemented it the economic environment has changed. ARIS is not only selling an illusion it is creating one as well.

That is the reason for all the different BPM products, when in fact a business needs a consolidated BPM, ECM, CRM with BI links for operational goal achievement.

If anything needs to be modelled it is a business (not process) architecture and the orgnization (ok with ARIS) but then it must be deployable, usable and maintable in production. That is impossible with ARIS.

Process is about dynamics (agility if you want) and a flowchart is everything else but dynamic.

My point is primarily to explain the differences between BPA tools and BPM suites and to take away some of the confusion that exists in the marketplace. I am not stating that choosing either one of them is the best choice when pursuing BPM.

Looking at BPA tools, modeling is not a purpose in itself, but serves a greater objective. I have mentioned a number of them: improving communication between various stakeholders to have a common understanding of reality, safeguarding corporate knowledge, supporting decision-making and change management. BPA tools especially add value since most of them comprise so much more than only process architecture nowadays with performance- and compliance aspects becoming increasingly more important.

By stating that a business architecture (including processes, roles and business rules) must be deployable, usable and maintainable in production you are assuming that all processes can be automated. However, for many companies, establishing a - fully automated - closed-loop is utopia in my experience.

I cannot but agree that a typical pitfall with BPA tools is to try and model the whole world and yes, once you’re done everything has changed. I prefer a more opportunistic or project-based approach where you first take on the business-critical processes and incrementally build up your architecture provided that proper governance has been established.

To keep track of reality you would need some form of measurement, since there will always be disparity between processes as documented, implemented and executed. Process intelligence, for instance, helps reconstruct the actual process behavior and compare it to the original design.

All in all, each type of technology mentioned has a right of its own and can perfectly co-exist. Companies have to be aware though of their purpose and target audience when selecting one or the other. You know what they say: “A fool with a tool is still a fool.”

Ricardo,
I appreciate your attempt to explain the differences between BPA and BPM. I have run into these questions all over the world while I introduce BPM and BizFlow. In a nutshell, BPA defines and creates models, but stops short at process execution. BPM transforms models into apps by combining workflow, rules and electronic forms (data capture and validation). BPM takes analysis and optimization to the next level through process monitoring and optimization. BPA is for creating plans. BPM is for building apps.