“The journey toward a fully process-driven organization begins in Phase 0 with acknowledgment that some business improvement opportunities cannot be addressed by conventional approaches,” the article states. “The need to seek fundamental operational change results in Phase 1, becoming ‘process aware.’  As the organization becomes more process aware, it enters Phase 2 when it begins automating specific processes to gain better control.”

“Eventually, the boundaries of individual processes expand, and in Phase 3, the organization must integrate these processes with each other, as well as those of trading partners and customers.  Competencies grow around managing the relationships between major business processes and, by Phase 4, the expertise exists to dynamically link strategic goals to process execution.  This, ultimately, leads to the creation of an agile business structure (Phase 5) -- the highest level of maturity.”

The article takes the position that “the BPM maturity model (demonstrates) that superior process management leads to realizing a truly agile business structure. The competencies gained along the way to becoming agile create greater visibility into how the organization delivers value, innovates customer service, and gains operational productivity and effectiveness.” It also points out, though that “the other important dimension is the organizational factors that must be balanced within and between phases.” It goes on to illustrate how to adopt concepts that were developed at the Babson College Process Management Research Center, which outline six critical success factors that an organization must develop during each phase.

The bottom line is that, “without a map, the journey to BPM maturity will be difficult and frustrating.  (We have) provided is a starting point for organizations to map out their journey ahead of time and determine the proper number of rest stops along the way to the ultimate destination, which may or not be the last phase.”

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