In an excellent blog by Neil Ward-Dutton of MWD he laments the lack of progress in improving bsuiness processes.  In fact his example of a typical project, which has changed little since the 1990's goes likes this:

    * Someone senior decides that a process needs to be improved.
    * A group of specialists (process analysts, business analysts, whatever) conducts an analysis exercise. Cue much walking around with clipboards, making notes.
    * Time passes.
    * Workshops and interviews are organised where processes are mapped out on large sheets of brown paper.
    * A team writes a large requirements document.
    * Time passes.
    * The organisation starts to procure one or more packaged applications and/or carry out some custom software integration work.
    * Time passes.
    * More time passes.
    * At some point, a date arrives. The project is declared finished.

Sadly his view of BPM/BPR/BPI is absolutely true in 80-90% of organisations, and in 100% of organisations that have engaged one of the Big4 consulting organisations.

There are glimmers of hope as we are now seeing major organisations (Nestle, HSBC, Chevron, Unilever, CarphoneWarehouse (video) 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.  It 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 delivering 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??