More and more organizations are adopting BPM as a discipline and scaling up their efforts to establish BPM as an enterprise-wide program. This has become very clear for me to see having spent much time with the Casewise BPM team in recent months. It has brought me to realize that when implementing a BPM project there are just as many technical issues as business issues which need to be initially addressed if success is to be realized. Research carried out by Casewise in a recent study on the BPM marketplace has uncovered the 5 main problems and risks encountered when implementing a BPM workflow solution…

1. Missing the Business Pain
The top reason for a BPM project “going cold” is missing the business pain. Unlike IT projects, where creating an application with “lots of functionality” is enough, a BPM project must tackle and solve the main business pain. For example, if the finance department still needs to spend the same amount of time completing “an electronic form” (instead of a paper-based form), or if the workflow hasn’t cut down the time it takes the sales team to approve a quote – the project will go cold.

2. Trying to use BPMS software for something it wasn’t designed for
The temptation to try to use the BPMS wizards to create a non-workflow application (such as creating an appointment diary or a search engine) is very risky. 90% of the development takes no time at all given that the BPMS wizards create the workflow quickly and easily; however, the last 10% can take forever. This will happen when you try to implement functionally that is not built-in to the BPMS software. Stick to what the tool has been designed for.

3. Change Creep
We have all been there before… Everyone is happy with the workflow although “it just needs a few tweaks here and there.” Agreeing with every nice-to-have request will cause delivery delays, and may result in the project never going live. Stick to the original plan; implement the workflow and then further down the line, look at improving it and working in additional features and functions.

4. Missing Prerequisites
When working with Casewise Synergy to creating internal workflows within Casewise (we practice as we preach), even complex scenarios take very little time to build and implement given the wizard-based functionality of the toolset.

It can be very frustrating when a project stalls due to things beyond our control; things that should have been addressed or completed before even starting the workflow development:

Installation: Not set up properly / missing a component / missing a service pack etc…
Security: The system administrator has blocked everyone from accessing the database server / external server / ftp  etc…
Integration: Cannot access a remote server / email account not fully configured etc…

Try to ensure that all external sources outside of the workflow are in place, configured, user permissions set etc… before commencing on the workflow build.

5. User Acceptance
BPM projects change the way an organization operates. They change the way employees work. People don’t like change; they worry about the unknown, worry about losing their job, prestige or power. New technology scares many employees; will I be replaced with an automated system.

I recently asked an audience by a show of hands, have you witnessed a positive reaction by your fellow employees when announcing the implementation a BPM workflow solution? Approximately 60% of the audience stated yes they had witnessed a positive reaction; however, this still leaves a high proportion of people either opposed or just fearful.

The success of a BPM project is influenced by the speed at which employees embrace the new technology and work with the methodology. It’s important to reaffirm to employees that the project is there to benefit all and to ease and reduce daily working activities.

Management must not only be positive, supportive, and passionate about the BPM system and workflow(s), but also communicate early and often with the user base to explain exactly why the organization has implemented this initiative. By clearly articulating the benefits of the workflow and how it will help the organization and specific departments meet strategic business objectives, employees will recognize that their time invested in training and familiarizing themselves with the system will not be wasted. Upon hearing and experiencing how the workflow is going to help individuals perform their job and yield personal advantages, users will be more likely to embrace and support the implementation project.

For more information on Casewise Synergy contact your regional Casewise office or email synergy@casewise.com