Forrester tries to shove BPMS offerings into pigeonholes: human-centric, integration-centric, document-centric, Microsoft-centric…. Yikes.  That’s bogus.   Most BPMS vendors are trying to make their tools applicable across a broad spectrum of process types.  But it’s true that today each BPMS offering is probably stronger in some process types than in others.  In my 2007 BPMS Report series, now getting off the ground, understanding this is fundamental to the evaluation methodology.

If you want to get a sneak preview of the issues involved, including the views of a few other panelists, check out the ebizQ webcast Automated, Human-Centric, and Collaborative Processes next Wednesday March 7 at 2pm ET/11am PT, part of their BPM in Action event.  Here’s their blurb on the webcast:

Some BPM tools focus on human centric processes, also sometimes called workflow, and some focus on automating processes across backend applications. A few vendors are now starting to think about how to better support collaborative processes as well. This panel discussion will focus on the differences and similarities among different types of process. How many tools does a company need? Tune in to this panel discussion and learn how to evaluate what you need in a BPM solution. This panel will explore the following:

    • What are the different requirements for supporting different types of processes?
    • Can one modeling environment adequately support the different types of processes?
    • Should we expect to integrate the different types of processes or should they be separate?
    • What criteria should companies use in evaluating different tools?

The panel is moderated by ebizQ’a Beth Gold-Bernstein. In addition to me, the other panelists include another ebizQ blogger who for some reason wishes to perform in the guise of his avatar Dr Jeffrey Sterllings, IBM’s Stephanie Wilkinson, and G360’s Steve McDonald.