Paul’s experience in Business Process Management spans 50+ years, from its beginnings in the 1960’s to the present. In his Column this month, he recounts what BPM was then and what it has evolved to be today. Paul’s perspective is interesting and it is enlightening to explore the roots of BPM and learn some things you might not have known.
Paul Harmon
Executive Editor and Founder, Business Process Trends
In addition to his role as Executive Editor and Founder of Business Process Trends, Paul Harmon is Chief Consultant and Founder of BPTrends Associates, a professional services company providing educational and consulting services to managers interested in understanding and implementing business process change.
Paul is a noted consultant, author and analyst concerned with applying new technologies to real-world business problems. He is the author of Business Process Change: A Manager's Guide to Improving, Redesigning, and Automating Processes (2003). He has previously co-authored Developing E-business Systems and Architectures (2001), Understanding UML (1998), and Intelligent Software Systems Development (1993). Mr. Harmon has served as a senior consultant and head of Cutter Consortium's Distributed Architecture practice. Between 1985 and 2000 Mr. Harmon wrote Cutter newsletters, including Expert Systems Strategies, CASE Strategies, and Component Development Strategies.
Paul has worked on major process redesign projects with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Security Pacific, Prudential, and Citibank, among others. He is a member of ISPI and a Certified Performance Technologist. Paul is a widely respected keynote speaker and has developed and delivered workshops and seminars on a wide variety of topics to conferences and major corporations through out the world.
Paul lives in Las Vegas.
Paul can be reached at pharmon@bptrends.com
Dynamic Business Process Management in the Knowledge Economy: Creating Value from Intellectual Capital. By Marek Szelągowski.
September 2, 2019 , By
Paul Harmon gives this book a thumbs up saying that the author succeeds by offering practical advice about the kinds of BPM issues you should be thinking about in the knowledge economy.
Harmon on BPM: Three Jobs I’d Like
September 2, 2019 , By
Paul muses that “it would be fun to have a full-time job with an organization and deal with the organization’s problems on an ongoing basis.” When I think that way, I usually proceed to think in terms of a job that I’d like. In this Column, Paul cites and defines those three jobs and what he would do to be successful in those positions.
Harmon on BPM: The Fourth Edition of Business Process Change
July 1, 2019 , By
Paul discusses the history of his landmark book on process change and explains the updates and changes to accommodate new trends and practices that readers will experience in the brand new 4th Edition, just published this spring.
Harmon on BPM: Process Mining and BPM
June 3, 2019 , By
In this month’s Column, Paul advocates the use of process mining tools for the day-to-day work of process analysts trying to analyze the effectiveness of existing processes and identifying opportunities for incremental improvement. Read Paul’s take on these helpful tools and his assessment of how they can help save your organization time and money.
Harmon on BPM: The One Best Way to Play Baseball
May 6, 2019 , By
Paul recently read an article on how the Houston Astros are winning by using advanced analytics. The article describes how the Astros General Manager, Jeff Luhnow, applies (AI) data and analytics to examine and improve the Astros performance.
Harmon on BPM: The Varieties of BPM
April 1, 2019 , By
Paul recently got into a discussion about BPM with a group of practitioners and discovered that each was doing something rather different. From that discussion, he was reminded of the variety of perspectives that a really comprehensive approach to business process management, process improvement or business transformation must embrace. In this column, he provides a brief summary of those perspectives.
Harmon on BPM: BPM in 2005 and 2019
March 4, 2019 , By
As the title suggests, Paul looks at BPM activity in organizations in 2005 and 2019. What’s changed? Are there more or fewer projects underway? Have BPM methodologies kept pace with advances in technology? Read Paul’s Column to learn his take on the questions.
Book Review: Bank of the Future: Minimise Technology Risk, Maximise Business Return
February 4, 2019 , By
This is not, strictly speaking, a book on business process change. It is, however, a book on how technologies are changing the banking industry, and thus, indirectly, a repository of ideas about the kinds of changes in banking that will lead to new banking processes in the near future. A major focus of the book […]
Harmon on BPM: Keeping Track of New Developments
February 4, 2019 , By
One of the roles of any good process analyst at any organization is to keep track of new technologies, new methods, and new approaches that might allow for the development of better processes at his or her company. In his Column this month Paul discusses how a process group might organize to facilitate keeping track of what’s new.
