The future of process management is agile!

The importance of increasing agility of integrated management systems

"Agility" is one of those terms that, especially in recent years and months, has increasingly mutated from a marginal phenomenon to a real trend buzzword. Due to the general change in the world of work, which could also be observed pre-pandemically and which was only accelerated and intensified by the consequences of the pandemic, the demand for "agile" business applications has strongly increased. But what advantage does my business derive from an "agile" system? And what does "agile" even mean in this context? Let's take a closer look.   

The basics - processes ≠ agile ... or?

An "agile" system is always referred to when it is a business application that is designed to work in a feedback-driven and, above all, flexible way. Accordingly, an agile system can react much faster to changes in the business environment. In this sense, there is also a constant self-renewal of the system. By definition, "agility" is thus somewhat in contrast to classic process management, which is geared towards predefined processes with a clear goal and little leeway for adjustments.
However, this does not mean that the two methods are necessarily mutually exclusive; quite the opposite. Today's reality of BPM systems and integrated management systems in general shows that often the combination of both methods can make the difference. Accordingly, a "hybrid" of both systems with both classic and agile processes, depending on the requirements of the mapped process, is common in the trade today. For example, logistics and production processes are often depicted more classically, while customer-oriented processes in particular are depicted more agilely, as these can be adapted more quickly and in some cases can (/must) be much more individual. As always, it is the mixture that makes the difference, which can be different for each company anyway.

Nevertheless, it is also a fact that even "classic" processes, such as the logistics of goods, should not be untouchable nowadays - and above all cannot be. At least for the continuous optimisation of one's own business processes, one of the most elementary components of the introduction of a process management system, even the most classic processes must be agile, at least to a small extent.

The "Best Practice": Best of both worlds?

So does my optimal IMS ("integrated management system") simply consist of a mix of different agile processes? Well, no, to be honest. Simply stating that "this process is so agile and this one is so" is not enough to set up a modern IMS, it's not quite that easy. But the topic is also too complex for that: What is the best way to optimise my processes? Who should best be responsible for optimising the respective business processes? Where exactly do I get the knowledge of how or when which process should be optimised? The answer: from YOUR process experts. However, this by no means means a single or a few process managers, but the entirety of your process owners who are actually actively involved in the implementation of the respective processes. This is where the well-founded process know-how of your company lies, which you only need to access. After all, the process owner himself knows best how much variance and individualisation takes place within "his" processes - and is thus also the first instance when it comes to agility!
(A method for this? How about "crowd mining", by far the most agile method for process mapping!)

The implication - agility through inclusion

In summary: "Ask your people a lot and your company will become much more agile", or something like that. Agility is not accelerated by upper management levels, but by the know-how of the process owners who are involved in the real processes. They know exactly what level of agility is taking place within their processes!