Business Process Change was originally written in 2002, and published at the beginning of 2003. Since then the interest in business process and the number of business process projects have increased dramatically. In 2002 there were no business process management (BPM) conferences in the United States. In 2010 there were at least a dozen major BPM conferences and dozens of other meetings on more specialized aspects of process change. In 2002 most corporate process work was focused on specific business process improvement projects. In 2010 leading organizations were focused on enterprise business process architectures and on developing corporate performance management and measurement systems that would allow senior executives to plan, monitor, and manage enterprise-wide transformation efforts. Today the focus is on digital transformation and modifying business models to accommodate industry-wide changes in the use of new technologies.

During this same period new tools and methodologies have become common among those undertaking business process change projects. Six Sigma programs in most major corporations have expanded and now include Lean technologies. Several Six Sigma groups have extended their practices to include human performance techniques or aligned their practices with frameworks like the Supply Chain Council’s Operational Reference Model (SCOR, which stands for Supply Chain Operations Reference). New process modeling notations have begun to replace earlier notations. There has also been significant work done to integrate business process modeling techniques with business rules technologies.

In a similar way, new software tools have made it possible to automate the day-to-day management of processes. Business process management suite (BPMS) products were unavailable in 2002 and are now widely available and becoming very popular. During the same time period a number of technical standards have been created to support these new software tools.

This book focuses on the entire range of options that business managers face when they seek to redesign, improve, or automate their company’s business processes. I have tried to emphasize the relationships between the various approaches. I am convinced, as a result of years of work with leading companies, that the companies that succeed over the long term are those that figure out how to integrate and coordinate all their different business process change options. Any one approach may seem like a fad. In any given year one or another of the approaches will get more attention in the popular business press. But, over the long term all are necessary. Six Sigma with its emphasis on quality and its powerful grassroots organizing abilities, IT with its automation techniques, and those who are focused on strategy, business process architectures, and process management training and evaluation all understand important aspects of processes. Smart managers will insist that practitioners from each of these areas coordinate their efforts to assure that their organizations achieve outstanding results.

In 2003, just as Business Process Change was published, Celia Wolf and I founded Business Process Trends, http://www.bptrends.com, a web portal that publishes a wide variety of articles on business process practices. As the executive editor of BPTrends, I have been well positioned to observe the evolution of the business process market. In 2006 and 2014 I prepared revisions and, as 2018 draws to a close, I have completed this fourth edition of Business Process Change. These updates have been necessary to assure that the book can continue to serve as a comprehensive guide for managers and practitioners who need up-to-date information on current business process practices.

Compared with earlier editions that have made more extensive changes the fourth edition consists of specific edits to improve the text, and short additions to report on new developments. We did consolidate two chapters on software tools into one chapter to reflect the continuing consolidation of the software tools market and we did add a new chapter on artificial intelligence to reflect the growing impact this new technology will make on business process automation in the years ahead.

As in the past, the Business Process Trends website (http://www.bptrends.com) provides an excellent extension to this book. Each month we publish current information on new techniques and case studies that illustrate trends in business process practices. In the earlier edition of Business Process Change we included an extensive Glossary and a Bibliography, which quickly became out of date as new terms and books became popular. In this edition we have omitted both and have placed them instead on the BPTrends website so they can be frequently updated.

I want to thank the many, many readers of Business Process Change and the members of the Business Process Trends website and its associated BPTrends LinkedIn Discussion site who have talked with me and sent me emails. Business process change is complex and expanding and I have been able to cover it as well as I have only because of the many different people who have taken the time to teach me about all the different kinds of process work that is being undertaken in organizations throughout the world. I can hardly name them all, but I can at least name a few who have provided special insights.

The first book originated in conversations I held with Geary A. Rummler. I worked for Geary in the late 1960s and learned the basics of process analysis from him. I have continued to learn from him and have read everything he wrote.

In 2003 Celia Wolf and I founded Business Process Trends. In 2005 Celia and I joined with Roger Burlton, Artie Mahal, and Sandra Foster to found Business Process Trends Associates (BPTA), an education, training, and consulting services group. Since then BPTA has grown and acquired partners and distributors throughout the world. Today, in addition to our founding group, we work with a wide variety of people who have each added to our overall understanding of process change and the broader business market for process improvement. As I have worked with my BPTA colleagues to create the BPTA curriculum, I have benefited from their extensive and practical experience in affecting business process change, and many of their ideas are reflected in this book.

In addition to the people I have worked with directly a number of people have helped by teaching me about specific technologies or methodologies. I have never met Michael Porter, but his books and writings have taught me almost everything I know about strategy, value chains, and the development of competitive advantage. Joseph Francis, formerly the CEO of the Supply Chain Council first convinced me of the importance of business frameworks and proceeded to demonstrate their power at Hewlett-Packard. George Brown of Intel has also been very helpful regarding both the SCOR framework and the value reference model framework. I owe Pam Garretson and Eric Anderson a great deal for teaching me how Boeing Global Mobility Systems organized its entire division using a process-centric approach. They really demonstrated what a dedicated management team can do to create a process-centric company. I owe a debt to Roxanne O’Brasky, Executive Director of ISSSP, Don Redinius and Ron Recker of AIT Group, and David Silverstein of the Breakthrough Management Group for teaching me more about Six Sigma. Similarly, I owe James Womack of the Lean Enterprise Institute and Steve Bell a great debt for what they have taught me about Lean and the Toyota Production System. I owe a similar debt to Howard Smith of CSC, Peter Fingar, Derek Miers, Rashid Kahn, Bruce Silver, Anne Rozinat, Phil Gilbert, and Eric Herness for teaching me about the nature and potential of BPMS products.

I owe thanks to Qualiware, a software tools company in Denmark, and Qualisoft, a business consulting services company in Norway, for providing screenshots that illustrate the use of BPTrends diagrams during process design. I specifically want to thank Tore Rasmussen, Jacob Lund, Martine Hagen, Terje Haugland, and Fredrik Nag for their help in preparing the screenshots.

I owe thanks to Stephen White for his many conversations on notation and Business Process Model and Notation and to David Frankel, Sridhar Iyengar, Fred Cummins, and Richard Mark Soley for their ongoing insights into the evolution of the software market and the Object Management Group’s standards-setting process. Thanks are also due to those who have talked with me about human performance analysis, including Roger Addison, Carol Haig, Alan Ramias, Rick Rummler, and Guy Wallace. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Michael Rosemann, Michael zur Muehlen, Wil van Aalst, Wasana Bandara, Jan Mendling, Jan vom Brocke, Marlon Dumas, Marcello La Rosa, and Hajo A. Reijers for keeping me abreast of academic developments in BPM. I also owe thanks to Kevin Brennan for keeping me aware of developments in the business analyst community, and to Curt Hall for our continuing conversations on business rules and artificial intelligence in all its manifestations. I want to thank Thomas Davenport for his insight and support over the last few years and for writing the Foreword to the third edition. I also want to thank Michael Rosemann of the Queensland University of Technology's Business Process Management, for writing a Foreword to this latest edition of Business Process Change.

This just scratches the surface, however. I also owe thanks to many others for their special insights into business process practices and technologies. With apologies to anyone I have accidentally omitted, this list includes: John Alden, Paul Allen, Michael Anthony, Gopala Krishna Behara, Oscar Barros, Conrad Bock, Jim Boots, Peter Bolstorff, David Burke, Allison Burkett, Frits Bussemaker, Richard Butler, Mike Costa, David Chappell, Brett Champlin, Fred Cummins, Bill Curtis, Joseph DeFee, Henk de Man, George Diehl, Jean-Jacques Dubray, Chuck Faris, Paul Fjelstra, Peter Fingar, Layna Fischer, David Fisher, Mike Forster, Kiran Garimella, Ismael Ghalimi, Mike Gilger, Ian Gotts, Adrian Grigoriu, Praveen Gupta, Keith Harrison-Broninski, Hideshige Hasegawa, David Heidt, Stan Hendryx, Jenny Huang, Casper Hunsche, Brian James, John Jeston, Gladys Lam, Antoine Lonjon, Mike Marin, Mark McGregor, Mike Melenovsky, Amit Mitra, Johan Nelis, Mark Nelson, James Odell, Ken Orr, Nathaniel Palmer, Ron Pellegrino, Jan Popkin, Chris Potts, Carlos Pratis, John Pyke, Pete Rivett, Mike Rosen, Ron Ross, Jim Sinar, Andrew Spanyi, Steve Stanton, David Straus, Keith Swanson, Doug Timmel, Donald Tosti, Alan Trefler, Cedric Tyler, Guy Wallace, Michael Webb, Cherie Wilkins, and Bruce Williams.

Each of these individuals helped make this book better than it would have been otherwise. Needless to say, in the end I took everything that everyone offered and fitted it into my own perspective and expressed it in my own words. Those who helped can take credit for the many good things they suggested, but can hardly be blamed for the mistakes I am sure I have introduced.

I owe a very special debt to Geary Rummler for providing me with a solid foundation in business process change and to Roger Burlton who worked with me to develop the process methodology described in this book. Many of the key concepts in this book, like the Scope Diagram, were derived from Roger's earlier work in process redesign.

Finally, I want to thank Celia Wolf one more time. We have worked together over the past 20 years to create the Business Process Trends website and BPTA. She has consistently proven to be both a wise partner and a wonderful friend. I could not have done it without her support and encouragement.