Business Process Management Strategy
A step-by-step guide for teams ready to formalize their BPM work. Understand the prerequisites, lifecycle stages, governance, and practices needed to build a clear, scalable BPM strategy.
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Many organizations begin BPM by documenting processes or solving isolated issues, but soon realize they need a structured way to guide, prioritize, and scale their efforts. A BPM strategy provides this structure. It defines how process work will be organized, governed, and executed so improvements become consistent and repeatable.
This page is for teams that already understand the basics of BPM and want to formalize a practical approach. If you still need clarity on BPM value, outcomes, or the business case, you can revisit the business process management hub.
For those ready to move forward, this guide explains how to build a BPM strategy using the BPM lifecycle, what needs to be in place beforehand, and how to implement early BPM activities into a sustainable, organization-wide practice.
What is a BPM strategy?
A BPM strategy is a practical plan that defines how an organization manages and improves its business processes. It connects goals, governance, methods, and tools into one coordinated approach, so process work does not happen in isolation or depend on individual teams.
Instead of treating BPM as a series of one-off projects, a BPM strategy explains how the organization will discover, analyze, design, implement, and optimize processes as an ongoing practice. It clarifies who is involved, which processes matter most, how decisions are made, and how success is measured.
For early-stage BPM teams, the strategy becomes the operating model that guides which activities to start with, how to prioritize improvements, and how to make BPM sustainable as the organization grows in maturity.
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BPM strategy prerequisites
Before defining a BPM strategy, organizations need a basic level of clarity, alignment, and structure. These prerequisites ensure that the strategy is realistic and can be executed without friction.
Early-stage BPM teams often already have partial inputs—such as documented processes or identified pain points—but need to turn them into a coherent foundation.
1. Clarify goals and focus areas
If goals were not formally defined earlier, this is the moment to make them explicit.
BPM goals should reflect the organization’s main use cases—for example, improving efficiency, increasing compliance, supporting an ERP program, or reducing customer friction.
At this stage, the right stakeholders must be involved. This typically includes:
- Business leaders who own the outcomes
- Process owners or subject matter experts
- IT or transformation teams who support execution
Clear goals ensure that the strategy focuses on the processes that matter most and avoids spreading BPM activities too broadly at the start.
2. Assess BPM maturity and readiness
Understanding where the organization stands helps determine how ambitious the strategy should be. A BPM maturity assessment highlights strengths, gaps, and the level of structure currently in place.
Indicators of readiness include:
- Some processes are already documented
- Stakeholders agree on the need for shared standards
- There is awareness of recurring inefficiencies or risks
- Teams are willing to collaborate across functions
Organizations with lower maturity should start small and build momentum gradually. Higher-maturity teams can scale faster and formalize governance earlier.
3. Core components of a BPM strategy
Every BPM strategy—regardless of maturity—should address a consistent set of components:
- Process governance: Roles, responsibilities, decision-making rules
- Process architecture: A structured view of core processes and their relationships
- Standards and methods: How processes are modeled, updated, and reviewed
- Measurement approach: How performance, compliance, and outcomes are tracked
- Collaboration structures: How business and IT work together
- Technology foundations: Tools used for modeling, workflow, mining, and collaboration
These components create the framework within which BPM activities will run.
4. BPM software selection
BPM tools support, rather than define, the strategy. Early-stage teams should focus on selecting tools that match their current needs and maturity level. Typical categories include:
- Process modeling and documentation
- Workflow execution and automation
- Process mining and performance analytics
- Collaboration hubs for process knowledge
A deeper evaluation happens in the dedicated BPM software selection page.
→ Related: BPM Success Factors
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How to build and implement a BPM strategy
A BPM strategy becomes actionable when the BPM lifecycle is used as a structured way of working rather than as a theoretical model. Each stage—discovery, analysis, design, implementation, and optimization—helps the organization move from scattered process activities to a repeatable, scalable practice.
While teams may also apply additional process improvement methods such as Lean or Six Sigma during specific analysis or redesign tasks, the lifecycle provides the overall structure for how BPM work progresses from understanding a process to improving and maintaining it.
Below is a practical view of how teams can use each stage to drive real decisions and outcomes.
1. Discovery: Define direction, scope, and process landscape
Discovery ensures the organization begins BPM in the right place and with a shared understanding of what is in scope. Many BPM initiatives fail early because their scope is either too large or unclear; a focused discovery stage prevents this.
A good starting scope usually has three qualities:
- It affects multiple teams. End-to-end flows like order-to-cash or onboarding are ideal.
- It has visible inefficiencies. High rework, delays, inconsistent handovers.
- It has a willing sponsor. Someone who cares enough to support decisions.
Once the scope is chosen, the team creates a simple process inventory, listing each process, its purpose, and the teams involved. This does not need to be detailed; the value comes from revealing unclear ownership or differing interpretations.
Example: If sales and operations describe the first steps of customer onboarding differently, that alone indicates a strategic alignment gap the BPM strategy must address.
Discovery produces: a defined BPM entry point, a basic process landscape, and agreement on what the first cycle will and will not include.
2. Analysis: Assess current performance and prioritize improvements
Analysis clarifies how processes actually work today and which issues matter most. This is where BPM becomes fact-based instead of assumption-based.
Teams typically combine:
- Interviews to uncover daily pain points and informal workarounds
- Operational data such as cycle times or backlog volumes
- Existing documentation (SOPs, diagrams, workflow rules)
- Process mining if data is available and maturity allows it
These inputs are used to identify patterns such as:
- repeated rework
- unclear handovers
- inconsistent approvals
- missing or unreliable data
- compliance deviations
Not every issue becomes a priority. A practical way to determine what belongs in the strategy is to assess each issue against two questions:
- Does solving it have meaningful business impact?
- Is it feasible within the coming cycle?
If the answer to both is yes, it belongs in the first BPM strategy wave.
Analysis produces: a shortlist of priority processes, a set of improvement themes, and rough baseline metrics that will guide upcoming design decisions.
3. Design: Define future-state standards and governance
Design determines how the organization will run BPM—not just how a single process will look after redesign.
This stage creates consistency by setting standards for documentation, ownership, and decision-making.
Most organizations focus on three pillars:
1. Ownership and roles
A clear governance model avoids confusion later.
Typical roles include:
- Process Owner – accountable for process performance
- Process Steward – maintains documentation and coordinates updates
- Contributors – subject-matter experts involved in daily operations
Assigning ownership removes ambiguity around who approves changes or monitors KPIs.
2. Documentation standards
These rules make process content usable and maintainable.
Standards may cover:
- required process levels (value chain → process → activity)
- modeling conventions (e.g., BPMN symbols, naming rules)
- mandatory elements (roles, inputs, outputs, systems)
With standards in place, process diagrams from different teams become comparable and aligned.
3. Change and review methods
The strategy should explain:
- how teams propose process updates
- who reviews cross-functional impacts
- how new versions are published and communicated
Design produces: a governance model, documentation standards, and a clear way to evaluate and approve changes.
These form the operational backbone for all further BPM work.
4. Implementation: Roll out BPM practices and initial improvements
Implementation is the most visible part of the BPM strategy.
Teams take priority processes, redesign them, and introduce changes into day-to-day work.
This stage often determines whether BPM gains organizational traction.
Implementation usually includes three streams of work:
1. Process redesign and documentation
Teams map the current state, validate pain points, and define a future-state flow that addresses them.
The redesigned process is then documented using the agreed standards.
Example:
If invoice approval delays stem from inconsistent data entry, the future-state design might include a standardized intake form and automated data validation.
2. Adoption and training
Redesign only succeeds when employees understand what changed.
Short, focused training—“here is what’s different and why”—works better than long theory sessions.
Publishing processes in a collaboration hub also helps teams learn where to find reliable guidance.
3. Tool enablement
Depending on maturity, teams may introduce:
- workflow automation for approvals
- modeling repositories for process documentation
- process mining dashboards for monitoring
Tools support implementation but should never drive it. The BPM strategy chooses tools that match readiness, not the other way around.
Implementation produces: redesigned processes, updated documentation, trained teams, and the first visible improvements that validate the BPM strategy.
5. Optimization: Establish continuous monitoring and iteration
Optimization turns BPM into an ongoing practice.
Without this stage, improvements fade, processes drift, and the organization returns to old habits.
Teams establish a review rhythm, so processes are evaluated regularly rather than only when issues arise. This can be monthly for high-volume processes or quarterly for others.
The monitoring approach should be simple at first. Early-stage organizations usually track only a few indicators, such as:
- cycle time
- error or rework rate
- compliance with required steps
As maturity grows, metrics become more granular and process mining provides deeper insight.
During reviews, teams maintain an improvement backlog containing new issues, opportunities, and change requests.
This backlog guides the next cycle of BPM work and prevents ideas from being lost.
Optimization also signals when the BPM strategy is ready to expand.
Once the initial scope is stable and governance is working, teams can apply the same lifecycle to additional processes or business units.
Optimization produces: measurable performance trends, a structured improvement backlog, and a strategy that evolves as the organization matures.
BPMN 2.0 poster
The uniform documentation of processes is vital for all organizations to provide a clear definition of responsibilities and manage key data in a structured manner. Our BPMN 2.0 poster offers daily support to document processes transparently, to avoid misunderstandings and to sustainably improve processes.
Challenges and best practices
Organizations that start working on a BPM strategy often encounter a few predictable challenges. These issues usually appear early and can slow progress if they are not addressed.
Common challenges
- Unclear or overly broad scope
BPM efforts lose momentum when the starting focus is too wide or not aligned to a meaningful outcome. Teams may attempt to document or improve everything at once, making it difficult to deliver visible progress.
- Gaps in ownership and accountability
Many processes span multiple teams, but no single person is accountable for their performance.
This leads to stalled decisions and inconsistent practices.
- Limited transparency into how work actually happens
Process steps may differ across teams, tools, or regions. Without a shared view of the current workflow, early BPM activities become based on assumptions.
- Data gaps or inconsistent reporting Organizations at earlier maturity levels often lack reliable metrics, making it hard to prioritize improvements or measure success.
Best practices
- Start narrow and deliver early wins
Choosing one high-impact process as the entry point helps build credibility and creates a repeatable pattern for future scope.
- Define ownership from the beginning Assigning process owners and clarifying decision rights early reduces delays and aligns teams around shared objectives.
- Build transparency before designing improvements A simple, accurate view of how a process currently works prevents misalignment and leads to more targeted improvements.
- Use a small, meaningful set of metrics A few indicators—cycle time, error rate, or rework volume—are enough to guide early strategy decisions. The measurement framework can grow over time.
- Create a predictable review rhythm Regular check-ins keep processes aligned with business needs and help teams identify new issues before they escalate.
A Practical Way to Build Your Optimal Business Processes
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do you know when BPM should be implemented?
BPM becomes necessary when processes are inconsistent across teams, difficult to measure, or creating recurring delays, errors, or compliance risks. Signs also include siloed practices, unclear responsibilities, and upcoming transformations—such as system upgrades or operating model changes—that require more structured process management.
How do you implement BPM?
When should a BPM strategy be updated?
Do small or early-stage organizations need a BPM strategy?
Who should create and own the BPM strategy?