Unique business processes makes organisations competitive

A misconception around business process management (BPM) is that it's solely a front office process that manages workflow and business procedures. However, BPM is also about backend processes, such as the development and testing of IT applications.

"Senior executives are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of managing the development and testing of IT applications: recent research conducted by Forrester, involving 305 IT decision-makers in North America and Europe revealed that 85% regarded application quality as either critical or very critical.

"Over 50% of companies with revenues of more than US$10-billion work consistently to apply quality methods and practices. BPM of IT application development and testing does not magically resolve all process and organisational issues, but it does give business people control over the process of application development," says Thomas Cronje, QA Architect at Compuware SA.

"In fact, BPM ensures that IT projects remain aligned with business goals and the the primary measure of IT is the successful delivery of reliable, high-performing applications that serve the core needs of the business."

However, Cronje warns that simply applying quality management tools is seldom sufficient to ensure application quality - rather, the tools must be applied within a quality methdology framework.

"An organisation's ability to achieve its potential rests with its ability to combine its resources effectively and efficiently. Effective management software keeps IT projects on track by capturing and communicating business, technical and testing requirements," says Cronje.

According to Cronje, a quality solution for software development should be able to track all the requirements of the business to ensure that as requirements change, developers and testers are automatically updated on any change. All the errors detected during testing should also be logged and automatically tracked through the redevelopment retesting cycle to resolution with progress updates being sent automatically to the relevant people.

"Effective solutions remove complexity of defect management and tracking processes by providing an organisation with the ability to automate time-consuming tasks, such as documenting and reporting defects, communicating status and priorities and locating bottlenecks.

"By doing this correctly, companies will gain from effective BPM solutions that keep IT projects on track to deliver real business benefits," he concludes.