TEN FEATURES TO CONSIDER IN RELATION TO PROCESS MAPPING / MANAGEMENT SYSTEM SOFTWARE

1. BPM (Business Process Management) does not mean “automation of business processes” – this is a typical hijacking of terminology by the IT industry. Business Process Management means the management of business processes.

2. Some software is designed to help you analyse a process, some to define and communicate it to others and some to automate the recording of the process steps. They require different features.

A process description should:

3. - give as much information as the user needs to understand and do the work

4. - have a consistent “look and feel” throughout the system.

5. People often want to print a process description (when reviewing a draft, or for presentation purposes). Pagination etc should be automatic.

If the software publishes the process descriptions:

6. - the system should provide a clear structure that helps people see “how it all fits together”

7. - it should be easy for a user to find the required process description without an undue number of mouse clicks.

8. A change to a role name (job title) should be applied automatically to all relevant processes.

9. It should be easy to add / delete / resequence tasks within a process.

10. If a set of process descriptions is published, it should be possible to extract role involvement reports automatically from the published process descriptions if role involvements have been defined per task.

[Ian Leaver of independent analyst Forward Look explains "user-centric process management" software]