Business Process Management (BPM) “All Over the Map” Problem Begs for a PMO

“Manufacturing Business Technology” magazine’s article on Business Process Management (BPM) maturity tries but misses by not providing a solution to the problem presented. They id the problem very well with a quote from Carl Frappaolo, VP of Market Intelligence for AIIM- “when you look at who’s performing business process management and who they report to, it’s all over the map.”

The “all over the map” comment begs for an organizational change. The value of a PMO in centralizing control and focus of business process improvement projects is proven. The article also recognizes the problem of having the IT department centralize control of all projects- there are two problems with this: 1) IT is focused on internal infrastructure and not “external” marketing oriented business processes thereby causing an imbalance in projects, and 2) their type of control is not enterprise wide because it typically doesn’t link to executive management and executing strategies. 

Execution of strategies and innovation can drastically improve with a right PMO model. Without a PMO type entity companies yield to competing interests of “silos” resulting in miserable levels of strategy execution and a lot of waste. There is a solution to “all over the map” BPM: the PMO. I’m consistently surprised more is not written about enterprise-wide PMO successes in the media.