It's awful hard to define the business process around business process management

Intuition tells us that more thoroughly we're able to document that the business process behind a certain "thing" or "product" or "service," the simpler it is to mess around with that process—adapting it or improving it to handle innovation or new business developments. And, of course, the simpler it is to develop an application that can automate that process.

Or so goes the theory.

But business process management, of course, is one of those dark arts practices practiced by certain elements of the company. The dirty secret is that there is very little business process around business process discovery, which is one of those small ironies that twists my mind around something fierce.

According to a new report by Forrester Research, about 60 percent of business analysts use some combination of Microsoft PowerPoint, Visio and Word to collect and present information. About 21 percent use enterprise tools (such as IDS Scheer, Mega and ProVision), while 8 percent use what Forrester calls collaborative process discovery tools (Lombardi Blueprint, Itensil). The bloat for discovery projects, according to Forrester, can quickly bloat up to $200,000 and take up to five months.

How can you improve your own business process initiatives so that your true business needs are better served by information technology. Here are some suggestions from Forrester:

• Find business analysts who really understand the process being documented; indeed, if they worked IN the process at some point in their career, all the better.
• Accept the reality that "change in requirements" is a fact of life; no process will ever be completed documented and analysts must be flexible enough to account for the incremental. In other words, get the core stuff right for the most impact on process evolution in the future.
• Avoid complicated modeling tools and look for ones that make it easier for the layperson to include their intellectual contributions. Even better, look for software that allows for collaboration. "Process wikis" are something you should study closely as an option. Here's some more information about what a process wiki is; this could take up a whole separate post, actually.
• Pilot as you go: When enough information is collected to start designing a prototype, start small but go for it.
• Set a deadline, and you'll be more likely to focus on the most critical elements of a process first. That will help you prioritize where your project could have the most impact.

The reason all this matters is not only because pretty much every company is reexamining its internal processes during the current recession but because the company that can adapt to the new conditions most quickly will be able to take advantage of the turnaround most quickly. Getting smarter about what matters in a process -- and what does not -- is an imperative of smart business management.

Here's the link to the complete Forrester report on business process management.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com