There are glimmers of hope as we are now seeing major organisations (Nestle, HSBC, Chevron, Unilever, CarephoneWarehouse) taking a different approach and getting the results they deserve.

So what is different:
– mapping in live workshops = speed and end user engagement
– mapping with end user as intended audience (not IT) = useable content & end user engagement
– content (processes & supporting info) available to every employee via web or mobile device = making end users 20%+ more efficient
– an application (rather than a tool) to capture, deploy, and manage the changes to the content ['application' as it is used long term, tool is only used on a project] = governed content
- the content has multiple uses – training, performance measurement, compliance, business improvement = reduced cost of compliance

Question – what is this application called. Is is NOT a BPA tool. BPA tools are used by Enterprise Architects to deliver the 1990′s approach described above. A BPMS is about automating the processes.

The collective term for this breed of application is still emerging. But there are already vendors out there delviering staggering results – BusinessGenetics, ProcessMaster and Nimbus Control to name 3.

These are ????? Business Optimization Management Suite (BOMS) ??? applications.

What is most disappointing is that if the effort of documenting processes in Visio was used instead to document using a BOMS there would be NO EXTRA EFFORT and a FAR GREATER RETURN.

So once we understand what it is called, more people can ask for it. So for now lets just agree to call it BOMS??

Answers, disagreement or better names to ian@iangotts.com