I was a bit disheartened when doing a checkup on BPM activities from various industry resources recently as I see that there are a number of agencies that are touting BPM as a technology-driven concept – when nothing could be further from the truth.

This touches on a number of big organizations that have chosen to completely forget that BPM DID NOT START with technology. They have chosen to simply ignore this fact because it doesn’t mesh with the story they want to tell, it isn’t where the perceive opportunity for money to be, and – to put it bluntly – they are driven by their own personal desire to achieve financial success.

Well I won’t blame anyone for working to achieve financial success. That’s a common factor in what most of us do and there’s nothing wrong with that. Bennu Group fits into that bucket as well though that is not our primary motivator. We’re doing what we do because first and foremost it’s the Right Thing to Do.

But I’m very upset by these people who act as if they have knowledge that they don’t have, that are relating facts that are not factual and that are foisting on us the idea that some form of BPM “body of knowledge, standard, or what not” based on technology is what BPM is all about. This would be a great joke except that it’s hurting a lot of good people and that IN MY BOOK MAKES THESE PEOPLE BAD PEOPLE.

I’ve applied some restraint to myself in this article to avoid naming names but you don’t have to look far to find these charlatans. Many are cloaked in the rhetoric of academia, the guise of professional organizations, the annals of complexity, and the sanctity of techno-jargon. They constantly recant the same old mantras to support their positions and seek a common message they can use to reaffirm each other. There is little (if any) actual on the ground experience in many of these cases though there are often lots of titles and research projects. When it comes to finding on the ground experience in the direct (explicit) creation of business success these people are like vampires running for cover when the sun rises.

But look closer! What do you find? What is new and insightful? What is direct and actionable? What is clear and concise? What do you see that you can “blink” the rightness of? What do they say that you know as soon as they say that it is RIGHT?

Bennu Group is charting a new path. We were there when the term “Business Process Management” was first coined, when PEOPLE were BPM. Bennu Group continues to carry that torch forward, building out the practice of PEOPLE BPM with the most advanced program in the world – bar none. We are committed to building competency in PEOPLE with the BPM that creates BUSINESS SUCCESS.

So while some folks talk about this certification or that, about this authority or that just remember – we’ve been living and breathing BPM since before it was BPM. We’ve been growing, adapting, learning, expanding, challenging and improving everything we do since then and will continue to do so into the bright new future. Everything we do is explicitly connected to the creation and extension of business success.

Even while I see so many other people laying waste to the promise of BPM (and yes, that is EXACTLY what they are doing) through the ignorance and self-actualization that drives them to do the things they do we will carry the BPM torch on into the future that we all deserve to share.

A lot has changed since BPM first came onto the scene but one thing has not changed. BPM is still PEOPLE and anyone that is telling you anything else is someone you should run away from as fast as you can.

Terry Schurter
Director - International Process and Performance Institute
www.ipapi.org