Call for Papers

Below is the call for papers for the upcoming Cutter IT Journal issue Business Process Management: The Missing Link Between Business and IT?, guest edited by Claude R. Baudoin.

• Abstract Submission Date: 27 November 2009
• Articles Due: 8 January 2010
• Guidelines for Contributors

Business Process Management: The Missing Link Between Business and IT?

The notion that processes need to be analyzed, documented, improved, and automated when appropriate dates back to the 1990s. At that time, BPM meant Business Process Modeling. That concept merged with Business Process Improvement (BPI) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR); the latter term was soonafter doomed by its strong association with outsourcing and therefore domestic job cuts. Once the entire lifecycle of business processes was considered as one (design, modeling, execution, monitoring, optimization -- not necessarily performed in that order), the scope of what we know as BPM today was reached, where the M for "management" indicates that the focus has shifted from the IT aspect of drawing models to the business value of managing against Key Process Indicators (KPIs).

A number of related efforts that have sprouted around the core concept of BPM seem to indicate its penetration into the business and IT cultures, starting with the BPM Initiative, continuing with the BPM Consortium, as well as the emergence of a BPM consulting and tools market, and the recent emergence of BPM-as-a-Service and BPM freeware.

To complete the positive side of the story, BPM and SOA are converging -- it now seems well accepted, after five years of discussion, that SOA is not a technology for technology's sake, but an approach to the modular delivery of business capabilities in the form of services. And to understand what business capabilities are required, a focus on business process is clearly needed. Reflecting this convergence, the BPM Consortium and SOA Consortium recently announced their merger.

Yet, there are also unresolved questions about BPM, especially about roles and responsibilities.

First, one is still hard-pressed to find a clear definition of Business Process Management, even on the BPM Consortium's Web site. As for the Wikipedia definition, it reads more like an advocacy piece for a certain approach than a consensus definition.

Secondly, with the increasing use of BPM, the choice of who should lead this effort can determine whether or not the initiative will succeed. Logically, it should be the business -- and this has led some to define a new role, the Business Architect, who embodies the analytical and formalization skills required for a BPM initiative to be effective under clear business ownership. In practice, however, many BPM efforts are led by IT, not because BPM is primarily an IT concept, but because (a) IT needs business process descriptions in order to architect and design systems, (b) the business organization does not have the skills required by BPM, and (c) the technique of BPM, i.e. drawing process models and transforming these models into working systems, is seen as an IT task.

In this context, there are also various unproductive views of BPM one can read about in the blogosphere, including:

• BPM is the essential link between the business and IT. Business processes are the objective description of what the business does, authored and validated by business management, and handed to IT as the requirements to enable the enterprise's operations, growth, and transformation. Business processes form the common language that business architects and enterprise architects use to create and manage the organization's business capability roadmap.
  
  
• BPM is just a buzzword. Basically, IT needs workflow diagrams in order to understand how to architect its systems, and yes, these diagrams are easier to read for IT's clients than textual specifications, but it is just a new format for requirements capture. Buy specific BPMN tools if you have some money, use Visio or PowerPoint otherwise, and move on. The "business architect" would just be one more overhead position of dubious usefulness.

The February 2010 issue of the Cutter IT Journal proposes to bring a balanced perspective on how organizations can employ BPM most effectively to maximize business performance and reach the elusive alignment of IT with the business. We invite useful and thoughtful analysis and debate, especially if based on real experience, on the best ways to understand and position BPM, and exploit the strengths of this concept without falling prey to the hype.

TOPICS OF INTEREST MAY INCLUDE (but are not limited to) the following:

• What interpretations of BPM have proved most useful to your business or clients?
  
  
• Is BPM an essential link between the business and IT? Why? How do you use it to span the business-IT divide?
  
  
• How do you educate both the business and IT to understand their respective roles in managing the lifecycle of business processes?
  
  
• Is BPM just a set of pretty pictures, complemented by regular IT management processes like IT Service Management and ITIL? If so, why has it failed to fulfill its ambitions? How could it be improved?
  
  
• Is BPM reshaping the organizational chart, and how? Should BPM reside in the business, IT, or both?
  
  
• What combination of technical and business skills should be required to ensure a successful BPM effort? What is the business architect's role, and do you have examples of successful ones?
  
  
• Can you provide examples of BPM and SOA working together?

TO SUBMIT AN ARTICLE IDEA

Please respond to Claude Baudoin at cbaudoin[at]gmail[dot]com with a copy to itjournal[at]cutter[dot]com, no later than 27 November and include an extended abstract and a short article outline showing major discussion points.

ARTICLE DEADLINE

Articles are due on 8 January 2010.

EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

Most Cutter IT Journal articles are approximately 2,500-3,500 words long, plus whatever graphics are appropriate. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact CITJ's Group Publisher, Christine Generali at cgenerali[at]cutter[dot]com or the Guest Editor, Claude Baudoin at cbaudoin[at]gmail[dot]com. Editorial guidelines are available at http://www.cutter.com/content-and-analysis/journals-and-reports/cutter-it-journal/edguide.html

EDITORIAL GUIDELINES

AUDIENCE

Typical readers of Cutter IT Journal range from CIOs and vice presidents of software organizations to IT managers, directors, project leaders, and very senior technical staff. Most work in fairly large organizations: Fortune 500 IT shops, large computer vendors (IBM, HP, etc.), and government agencies. 48% of our readership is outside of the US (15% from Canada, 14% Europe, 5% Australia/NZ, 14% elsewhere). Please avoid introductory-level, tutorial coverage of a topic. Assume you're writing for someone who has been in the industry for 10 to 20 years, is very busy, and very impatient. Assume he or she will be asking, "What's the point? What do I do with this information?" Apply the "So what?" test to everything you write.

PROMOTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

We are pleased to offer Journal authors a year's complimentary subscription and five copies of the issue in which they are published. In addition, we occasionally pull excerpts, along with the author's bio, to include in our weekly Cutter Edge e-mail bulletin, which reaches another 8,000 readers. We'd also be pleased to quote you, or passages from your article, in Cutter press releases. If you plan to be speaking at industry conferences, we can arrange to make copies of your article or the entire issue available for attendees of those speaking engagements -- furthering your own promotional efforts.

ABOUT Cutter IT Journal

No other journal brings together so many cutting-edge thinkers, and lets them speak so bluntly and frankly. We strive to maintain the Journal's reputation as the "Harvard Business Review of IT." Our goal is to present well-grounded opinion (based on real, accountable experiences), research, and animated debate about each topic the Journal explores.