Agile BPM: A Comprehensive Guide To Endorse Agile Business Practices
Key takeaways
- Agile BPM is an approach to managing and improving business processes by combining the principles of business agility with the discipline of BPM.
- Agile business frameworks continue to automate things without disrupting the business process model.
- Agile business management, on the other hand, emphasizes iterative development, frequent feedback, and continuous improvement
- Agile business process mapping outlines the various tasks to be accomplished and the roles and responsibilities by using a visual representation like a map, or chart diagram.
- Cflow helps organizations implement an agile BPM approach by providing a flexible, collaborative, and efficient platform for process development, refinement, and optimization.
Expect the unexpected is the new normal after the pandemic and the world is adapting to it. But how about your organization’s business strategies and BPM methodologies? Are they ready to take up the new normal: The answer must be yes to lead the market trends, which in terms of business management is – Agile BPM.
How does your active BPM react to an unexpected glitch or unanticipated variable input?
It is for sure, your BPM methodology suffers a wiggle and stops automating the business processes. So, the urge to switch from regular BPM to agile BPM is lucid.
In other words, the necessity to pivot the benefits of BPM even for unforeseen business instances has resulted in a more flexible framework: Agile Business Process Management (BPM). This blog will walk you through the agile process improvement methodology and its benefits. It also discusses where agile BPM works and why it is important to incorporate agile business practices in your organization.
Table of Contents
What is Agile BPM?
Agile BPM is an approach to managing and improving business processes by combining the principles of business agility with the discipline of BPM. Agile for business aims to enhance the flexibility, responsiveness, and efficiency of business processes, while also automating the day-to-day business activities.
How sensible you may plan your business processes, there are some mysterious popups (ad hoc) beyond your plans. This is where agile BPM comes into the picture. The agile BPM approach is flexible to embrace quick changes so that the business processes are automated while being responsive when unplanned tasks emerge.
“After all, agility is all about dealing with the unanticipated”
Every business process has its input, tasks, and output, and agile business processes take the variable input which was never in your plan and provide a framework to process such unanticipated happenings. The variable input can be a broken tool, unexpected requests, or delayed payments. Agile business frameworks continue to automate things without disrupting the business process model.
BPM VS Agile BPM
Competition is increasing in many industries, and organizations need to be able to respond quickly to changes in the market. Agile BPM allows organizations to be more responsive and innovative, helping them to stay ahead of the competition.
In traditional BPM, processes are typically documented, analyzed, and optimized linearly, with little room for iteration or adaptation. Agile business management, on the other hand, emphasizes iterative development, frequent feedback, and continuous improvement. Agile business practices allow for more rapid and flexible development of process models, as well as quicker identification and resolution of issues.
Real-time (Agile) business process management is an evolving technology enabling business users to experience a faster responsive business transformation, says a study.
Conventional BPM works best for automation business processes that are more structured and repeated over time. Not every business process follows a specific pattern or order while managing.
Agile process improvement methodology scores the best for providing an automated framework that allows business processes to take real-time inputs and responses immediately to effectively deal with these variable inputs! This is a rebel when it comes to managing things that can’t be foreseen.
“If you can orchestrate things in unforeseen circumstances without stopping the whole process, that’s how agile business management framework works”
Regular BPM and Agile BPM share the same goal of improving business processes while their key difference is that the former is often focused on achieving specific process improvement goals, whereas the latter is more focused on continuous improvement and adaptation to changing business requirements.
In short, the regular BPM automates the clearly defined process while agile scores well with unpredicted real-time data inputs and moves away from that pre-defined and predictable processes box.
Example of Agile BPM
BPM methodology works at the pace of inputs being fed into them, however, they follow a predictive pattern to process them and they don’t react to real-time or instant changing feedback.
For example, When a scrum development team is working on a website building, they jiggle when the client keeps on changing their input for website development. Agile BPM comes in here handy.
There may be instances where your fixed nuances for one process are to be handled and utilized by other departments for some reason. This provokes an internal glitch with regular BPM while the Agile business process’ ability to pivot without interrupting business operation is its core resolute nature. To be more precise, regular BPM effectively deals with the structured process (like sales) while the dynamic process (marketing scenarios) holds a fair deal with agile BPM.
What is Agile Business Process Mapping?
Business process mapping is visually representing the business processes with the steps involved in the process from the start to the end. Agile business process mapping outlines the various tasks to be accomplished and the roles and responsibilities by using a visual representation like a map, or chart diagram.
In agile business management, the steps taken throughout the customer journey are mapped as every unforeseen circumstance is unique to every other user, and the steps involved with every user story differ. Thus, agile BPM focuses more on improving the end-user experience.
How Does Agile BPM Work?
Traditional BPM is a rigid framework and deals with structured processes and ascertained results. There is no room to handle uncertain or unanticipated processes without interrupting the business model in regular BPM. A BPM for dealing with ad-hoc or unstructured is an agile process improvement methodology and it works based on two cause-and-effect scenarios.
Cause 1: Some routine work might require more knowledge than what is documented. For example, PO processing might look like an everyday task but involves some knowledge base to avoid mistakes.
Effect 1: Agile business management is flexible enough to adapt you in taking additional knowledge to complete the task.
Cause 2: Routine work might look simple but is complex enough. Such tasks ought to be split into multiple simple tasks so that more people are involved with more inputs to progress the process.
Effect 2: Agile business practices encourage collaboration which aids in making complex tasks simpler to finish them off more quickly than expected.
Why is Agile BPM important?
Business requirements are constantly changing, whether due to shifts in consumer demand, changes in technology, or other factors. Agile business processes allow organizations to quickly adapt their processes to meet these changing requirements.
Traditional BPM is rigid and works well with structured business process orchestration; there might be a question peeping inside your mind now – why don’t we redesign the active BPM in such a way to react in unforeseen circumstances too? But, agile for business is not as easy as it sounds in the documentation!
Sketching out the possible ad-hoc situations and seeking out a defined framework in the regular BPM itself is literally impossible (being unable to proactively predict/plan is what makes sense as ad hoc).
You might only lose your efforts and time planning the uncertainties. However, uncertainties cannot be planned as designing a dynamic framework for managing ad-hoc in the process will end things in a mess or you will end up missing out on something for sure!
Key Benefits of Agile BPM That Fits Your Business Model
Agile BPM offers several benefits over traditional BPM. Here are some of the key benefits of agile business management:
1. Flexibility:
Agile process improvement methodology is designed to be flexible and adaptable, allowing organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements and market conditions.
2. Continuous Development:
Continuous improvement is essential for organizations that want to stay competitive and improve their operational efficiency. Agile BPM emphasizes continuous improvement, allowing organizations to refine and optimize their processes over time.
3. An End of Organizational Silos:
Agile business practices emphasize continuous improvement so that processes can be refined and optimized over time based on feedback and insights gained from customers.
4. Reduced Production Time:
Customers expect fast, efficient, and personalized service. Agile BPM allows organizations to deliver on these expectations by streamlining and optimizing key business processes. Agile business practices allow for more rapid and flexible development of process models, which can be developed and refined iteratively and collaboratively.
5. Lead with Technology to Transform:
Digital transformation is changing the way that many businesses operate, and organizations need to be able to adapt their processes to take advantage of new technologies. Agile for business allows organizations to quickly adopt new technologies and incorporate them into their processes.
6. Reduced Risk:
Agile business management reduces risk by breaking down the process into smaller, more manageable pieces and testing each piece iteratively and collaboratively. This helps to identify and address issues early before they become larger problems.
7. Lead the Market:
Agile business processes can help organizations bring new and innovative products or services to market more quickly by streamlining and optimizing key business processes at a creative and quick pace.
8. Improved Collaboration:
Agile BPM promotes collaboration and communication among stakeholders, including process owners, developers, and end-users, which helps to ensure that the process is designed and implemented in a way that meets the needs of all customers.
9. Bridge the Culture Gap:
The business operations and IT departments work on different horizons, though both equip the organization towards excellence. You can experience the lapse bridged with agile business process mapping.
Best Practices for Agile BPM: Making BPM More Agile
Organizations can foster a few key practices to revel in the benefits of agile BPM to unfurl its flexible nature in unforeseen circumstances. Here is a quick walk-through to make your BPM more agile.
1. Identify and Simplify:
Identify a process that needs improvement and determine the scope of the project, including the process objectives, end users, and other success metrics. Rather than trying to optimize the entire process at once, break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces that can be developed and refined iteratively and collaboratively. Break the process down into smaller, more manageable pieces and develop each piece iteratively and collaboratively.
2. Embrace an Iterative Approach:
Develop a plan for each iteration, including the objectives, timeline, and deliverables. Use the task and time management tool to define every participant’s roles and responsibilities. Ensure reading the real-time data inputs to improve each iterative stage with new technologies. Look for a solid measurement procedure to analyze the effectiveness of the evolving changes.
3. Prioritize Flexibility:
Design the process to be flexible and adaptable, so that changes can be made quickly and efficiently based on changing business requirements or feedback from stakeholders. Choose a team that can adapt to this change and act flexibly to facilitate changes on the fly.
4. Incorporate Rapid Feedback:
Gather feedback from all the involved team members early and often, and incorporate it after each iteration. Use this feedback to refine and improve the process at each iteration, so that they don’t rise as huge issues later.
5. Emphasize Continuous Improvement:
Continuously monitor and evaluate the process, and make ongoing improvements based on feedback and insights gained from stakeholders.
6. Utilize Technology:
Use technology, such as product roadmap software, to streamline and automate the process, and to enable more efficient collaboration and communication among stakeholders.
Agile BPM can be a good fit for businesses that operate in dynamic environments, value continuous improvement and innovation, and are looking to improve operational efficiency and leverage technology to improve business processes.
7. Build a Mindset of Agility:
It’s time to change from that old-school rigid BPM to a simple mindset of agile process control. Your teams should be encouraged to work in a dynamic environment with an attitude expecting processes to change anytime and knowing you have control over them with agile BPM.
8. Foster Collaboration:
Encourage collaboration and communication among stakeholders, including process owners, developers, and end-users, to ensure that the process is designed and implemented in a way that meets the needs of all stakeholders.
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How Does Agile Suit My Business?
Whether or not agile BPM is a good fit for your business depends on several factors, including the nature of your business, your organizational culture, and your business goals. However, here are some general considerable queries that can help you determine if agile process improvement methodology is a good fit for your business:
- Does your business operate in a dynamic environment with changing business requirements?
- Does your business involve many hardly predictable processes?
- Do you need your business processes to be quickly responsive to your business needs without staggering the orchestration framework?
- Is your business framework focused on the refinement and optimization of your business processes?
- Does your business entitle highly qualified employees not to indulge in value-added tasks?
- Do you aim for a collaborative approach in your business model where data flows are hassle-free?
If you nod up and down, then it’s time to build the responsive realm of BPM: The agile methodology. The below section entails an effective measure to do so.
Building an Agile BPM Approach with Cflow
The cloud-based BPM solution. Cflow helps organizations implement an agile BPM approach by providing a flexible, collaborative, and efficient platform for process development, refinement, and optimization.
- The flexible and adaptable nature of Cflow allows organizations to respond quickly to changing business requirements and market conditions. The workflow in the Cflow framework makes it easy to develop and deploy your business processes in an agile manner.
- The drag-and-drop interface and pre-built workflow templates enable users to quickly create and modify workflows. Workflows can be modified and updated on the fly, without requiring extensive development work, which is what agile process improvement methodology is known for.
- Cflow provides real-time analytics and reporting so that organizations can gather feedback from stakeholders early and often, and use this feedback to refine and improve the workflow at each iteration.
- Easy collaboration and continuous improvement are facilitated by the platform embarking on refinement and optimization of workflows.
- Cflow provides a governance framework that ensures that workflows are consistent, standardized, and meet compliance requirements and lets your team be informed about and effectively participate in the agile business management process.
Final Thoughts
Staying competitive in this rapidly changing business environment requires the all-powerful ability to quickly develop and deploy new processes. To harness this ability businesses should opt for business process management solutions that could respond to customer and market demands with agility. However, the success of an agile business process is not guaranteed and requires careful planning to ensure that the desired outcomes are achieved.
Choosing a flexible cloud-BPM solution like Cflow helps you implement an agile business management approach with ease. With Cflow, organizations can ensure that agile BPM is set up for success. With a clearly defined roadmap, your team can stay informed and make sure your business goals are met on time.
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