| In a recent discussion with an ECM/BPM expert | | | | related in any way. In any case it can also be 15 |
| he brought up the commonly used principle that | | | | 85 and it does not even have to add up to a 100. |
| BPM can be justified by the 80/20 Pareto Principle. | | | | This idea of looking at 20/80 rather than 80/20 |
| I accept that it would be too expensive to define | | | | would mean that we need to monitor ALL |
| and manage a 100% of business processes so if | | | | processes to identify which 20% make 80% of |
| you manage 80% then BPM is justifyable. I | | | | revenue and which ones cost. Analysing and |
| thought about that for a little while. When Italian | | | | encoding all processes to do so is not feasable |
| economist Vilfredo Pareto discovered that 20% | | | | and it would anyway ruin the business. Quality, |
| of people own 80% of all wealth he was | | | | revenue and profit are a complex balance and not |
| surprised that the distribution was the same in | | | | easy to achieve with a common approach. As I |
| other countries. It is probability of distribution | | | | said before: In times when we look to increase |
| inherent to complex adaptive systems that is | | | | business agility, it seems foolhardy to reduce |
| most likely related to the Gauss curve. I admit | | | | people agility by insisting on vertical applications or |
| that this link is intuitive off the top of my head. | | | | rigid processes. |
| I propose that this is maybe used the wrong way | | | | Our approach at ISIS Papyrus is to model |
| in BPM (and other scenarios). The Pareto Principle | | | | business entities in metadata and empower users |
| would for example suggest that 20% of | | | | to collaborate in processes freely while enabling |
| customers produce 80% of revenue. If we now | | | | monitoring and auditing. The Papyrus User-Trained |
| apply it the same way to BPM then 20% of | | | | Agent can perform such interactive process |
| processes would produce 80% of revenue? That | | | | discovery and then guide users. It is simple to add |
| makes a lot of sense to me. That does NOT | | | | cost/time/quality/value fields to processes and fill |
| imply that these 20% of processes have to be | | | | them with federated operational business |
| rigidly controlled. Are these the same 20% that | | | | intelligence and thus identify the 20% groups. As |
| make 80% of profit? Maybe there are only 20% | | | | discussed above not all processes can be |
| of processes that need 80% of control effort? | | | | monitored and tuned to the same principles. |
| Possibly there even 20% of processes that cause | | | | Originally published on my blog: Welcome to the |
| 80% of cost? Also seems to make sense. It is | | | | Real (IT) World! |
| most likely that these 20% groups are not | | | | |