For the first time since the existence of IIBA Brussels, the chapter event was held on academic soil with VUB hosting a thought provoking conference on the subject of ‘process’. Approximately 25 people took a seat in the auditorium, while an unknown number from worldwide joined the online live stream. 

We were very pleased to have Emiel Kelly from the Netherlands as our event guest speaker. Emiel is a subject matter expert, BPM personality, blogger and social media activist, but above all takes nothing for granted and stays far away from all industry hypes surrounding ‘process thinking’. A perfect match with the academic world. 

What have we learned? Here are 3 takeaways. 

First, real process insight doesn’t come from drawing arrows and activity boxes on a swimlane diagram. You need to define a lot more like process purpose, stakeholders, inputs, outcome, resources, rules. Add to that the information related to the case flowing through the process, which is something that doesn’t show on any common process flow diagram.

Second, a couple of things that most business process professionals don’t even think about when designing processes. For instance, what is the effect on flow with multiple process activity executors? Do you ever consider the possibility of deadlocks? 

Third, the rise and importance of the so-called Digital Business Platform (also known as Business Process Management Platforms) which are not only very effective at executing business processes but maybe even more important at gathering structured data about processes. Data that can be used by process-mining techniques to analyse, predict and improve processes.

After two hours of inspiration, learning and critical thinking we headed to the network drink offered by the IIBA Brussels chapter and very much appreciated on the so far hottest day of 2017. 

Pictures of the event can be found via our event page on the IIBA Brussels chapter Facebook.