Process Management: Business Process Management (Definitions)

"The general term for the services and tools that support explicit process management (such as process analysis, definition, execution, monitoring, and administration), including support for human and application-level interaction." (Tilak Mitra et al, "SOA Governance", 2008)

"Software that models an enterprise's human and machine tasks and the interactions between them as processes and can monitor these tasks in real time in order to trigger a unit of work or set off an alert when specified time limits are exceeded or a response is not received within a specified time." (Janice M Roehl-Anderson, "IT Best Practices for Financial Managers", 2010)

"Software products that support the design, execution, and monitoring of repetitive, day-to-day business processes. Can create data used in diagnostic or interactive control systems." (Leslie G Eldenburg & Susan K Wolcott, "Cost Management 2nd Ed", 2011)

"A popular management technique that includes methods and tools to support the design, analysis, implementation, management, and optimization of operational business processes." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

"Management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. Business process management attempts to improve processes continuously and may be therefore described as a “process optimization process.” Business process management activities can be grouped into five categories: design, modeling, execution, monitoring, and optimization." (IQBBA, "Standard glossary of terms used in Software Engineering", 2011)

"A managerial discipline that is focused on execution. It is the art and science of how organizations do things and how they can do them better. BPM attempts to optimize process performance to achieve strategic business objectives consistently while adapting, when necessary, to change or to new opportunity." (Carl F Lehmann, "Strategy and Business Process Management", 2012)

"Managing the work steps and business activities of an organization's workers in an automated way." (Robert F Smallwood, "Information Governance: Concepts, Strategies, and Best Practices", 2014)

"A discipline focused on continuous improvement and transformation of end-to-end cross-functional business processes." (Forrester)

"Business process management (BPM) is a discipline that uses various methods to discover, model, analyze, measure, improve and optimize business processes. A business process coordinates the behavior of people, systems, information and things to produce business outcomes in support of a business strategy. Processes can be structured and repeatable, or unstructured and variable." (Gartner)

"Business process management (BPM) is the discipline of improving a business process from end to end by analyzing it, modelling how it works in different scenarios, executing improvements, monitoring the improved process and continually optimizing it." (Techtarget)

"Business process management (BPM) involves the use of appropriate tools and techniques to design, analyse, and manage operational business processes and, where possible, to improve those processes. The term business process refers to repetitive activities performed in the context of an organization’s normal, everyday operations." (Institute for Competitive Intelligence)