Are you as sick as I am of so-called "architects" swiftboating business process management (BPM) with phony strawman arguments? ...Blogger Nick Malik suggests "according to the true [BPM] believers, we can give end users one of our pretty languages (BPMN or BPEL) and they will write their own software, and we can fire all the IT developers."... No one is saying those things.

Bruce Silver, Contributor

July 10, 2008

2 Min Read

Are you as sick as I am of so-called "architects" swiftboating BPM with phony strawman arguments? Here's the latest, from blogger Nick Malik:

I like point out really nutty ideas, even when a lot of people have spent a lot of time investing in them... [BPM] created pretty languages for describing business processes, and we started telling the business that once business processes are described using these languages, then you can push a button and "viola" the process becomes automated. According to the 'true believers,' we can give end users one of our pretty languages (BPMN or BPEL) and they will write their own software, and we can fire all the IT developers.

Nick, your post is not so much nutty as scurrilous. It's plain false, but it fits a recurring pattern in our culture: Repeat a charge long enough and people start to believe it. Please tell me, who in the BPM community is saying these things? I challenge you to do it. And don't tell me some joker in the next cubicle. A BPM vendor, authoritative consultant or blogger, whatever. Let's have the links. Put up or shut up.

Let's hypothesize that Nick has some clue about what BPM is, even though BPMN can not by itself generate implementation (it's just activity flow modeling) and BPEL is definitely a developer language, not for 'end users.' (Maybe Nick thinks that only Java programmers are 'real' developers?) BPM Suites based on BPMN do provide a more agile implementation style in which business and developers collaborate on process automation. But not all BPM solutions are best implemented by BPM Suites, and not all business solutions are best handled by BPM. No one is saying those things. So stop the swiftboating. Please.Are you as sick as I am of so-called "architects" swiftboating business process management (BPM) with phony strawman arguments? ...Blogger Nick Malik suggests "according to the true [BPM] believers, we can give end users one of our pretty languages (BPMN or BPEL) and they will write their own software, and we can fire all the IT developers."... No one is saying those things.

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