Part 2 of the post from the series about the BPM skills is here!
Part 1 of the post about BPM skills in 2025 was full of insightful answers about role of process management today. Part 2 provides additional great comments.
Read below for inspiring answers from 10+ BPM experts.
As always, you can either read everything or use the navigation below. Enjoy!
Lloyd Dugan
Marlon Dumas
Mahendrawathi ER
Michael Fox
Renata Gabryelczyk
Paul Holmes-Higgin
Thomas Hildebrandt
Martin Holling
Caspar Jans
Sandeep Johal
Emiel Kelly
Hanneke Loefs-Mos
Amy Van Looy
Morten Marquard
Derek Miers
Nathaniel Palmer
Björn Richerzhagen
Stefanie Rinderle-Ma
Kevin Tan
Steve Towers
Roland Woldt
Which BPM skills will be hot in 2025?
Now, let’s dive into the answers.
Lloyd Dugan
Lloyd Dugan is a widely recognized thought leader in the development and use of leading modeling languages, methodologies, and tools, covering from the level of EA and BA down through BPM, Case Management, and SOA. He specializes in the use of standard languages for describing business processes, systems, and services, particularly BPMN, CMMN, and DMN from the OMG. He has developed and delivered BPMN 2.0 training to the U.S. Department of Defense and large consultancies. He has nearly 40 years of experience with public and private sector clients, and has an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. He is a past member of the Workflow Management Coalition and its BPSim Working Group that produced the process simulation standard, and also a past member of the OMG’s BPMN Model Interchange Working Group (MIWG). He is a Contributing Member (author) and Collaboration Team Member for the BA Meta Modeling and BPM-BA Alignment Groups of the Business Architecture Guild. He represents the Guild on the OMG Task Force for the BA Core Metamodel (BACM) standard. He is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences on BPM, BPMN, Case Management, Decision Management, SOA, and BA. He is a published author or co-author on BPM, BPMN, and BA. He led the effort to develop a new OMG certification for integrating BPMN, DMN, and CMMN, known as BPM+. He serves as the Chief Architect for Serco, NA, on its CMS Eligibility Support Program, which provides back-office processing of applications to access the Federal Health Care Exchange created under the Affordable Care Act, and where he has led award-winning efforts to build intelligent document processing, dynamic work assignment queuing, RPA for case management, use of AI/ML, process mining, and migration of all Program elements to the AWS Cloud. He still delivers BPM-related training, and when asked also provides client advisory services on BPM-related matters/technologies.
WWW: Serco, NA – CMS Program
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Climate change will likely (and certainly should) force a reexamination of our increasing and widespread reliance on computationally-intensive technologies like AI/ML and the cloud that consume increasing amounts of electrical power (still) produced from mostly fossil fuels, (hopefully) making them more power-efficient and not just more effective. The aging of populations in the West will likely lead to the expansion of process automation efforts and use of AI/ML to address the attendant social and economic needs in less typically user-interactive ways and in more user-anticipating ways. Digital technologies are already pervasive in our lives, and can only become more so, which will have to happen in ways that help societies while not reinforcing economic divides. AI/ML will continue to augment BPM technologies, but the use cases for such will become more refined, better understood, and clearer in the value added beyond the marketing-driven branding of simply using AI/ML (especially the generative kind).
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Modeling is still a key skill for BPM practitioners, even though the AI/ML-fueled capability of modeling tools to generate models is advancing steadily. This is because BPM modeling languages can still model complex behaviors better than the tooling can (at least for now), which requires a minimal understanding of the key semantics of the modeling languages to be able to read models and an even deeper understanding to create models or to refine generated ones. (As is often heard about AI/ML, it will not replace one’s job so much as the ability to use it well will become a prerequisite for one’s job.) Incorporation of more and more AI/ML means that BPM, typically built on using discrete data and deterministic logic, will be more and more built on using probabilistic data and fuzzy logic, which raises more challenging design issues and the importance of math in all of this (e.g., AI/ML measurements like Precision, Recall, and F1).
The advent of Agentic AI brings new design patterns into play that answer these challenges. In addition, AI/ML is making more and more unstructured data/document types accessible, but requires understanding these things as vector datasets and using knowledge graph-based approaches to not just extracting information but giving it the appropriate contextual meaning. The use of LLMs (or smaller varieties) becomes more critical as generic public models will give generic (and perhaps hallucinatory or biased) results, but these can be narrowed and tailored for further resolution through the joint use of domain-specific models as a new design pattern.
Next, as has been happening for some time now, the importance of data analytics and the application of data sciences will continue to grow, especially as AI/ML makes even more data accessible and subject to analyses. The importance of using or at least understanding technologies like Excel, SQL, and Python continue to be key. A strong BPM practitioner should house a budding data scientist in this age of data’s ascendancy relative to that of process.
Finally, the advent of cloud technologies and micro-services make very fine-grained designs possible and easier to do (e.g., REST services running as Lambda jobs in AWS Cloud), which present challenges for building stateful applications out of stateless services.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
The resources listed elsewhere in this set of posts are better than anything I could assemble. I would simply add that BPM has always been, and still is, a discipline more than just a set of enabling technologies, and as such, requires a steady dedication to the craft and a commitment to being curious and to always be learning. My one suggestion is that Agentic AI, which combines agent-like behaviors and AI/ML use cases into new design patterns, becomes a key point of learning as it will become more prevalent in BPM applications. Here is an example of a conference on using AI/ML in BPM that I attended and spoke at: https://agenticage.ai/.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
BPM technologies have become highly efficient, so skills at finding efficiencies are waning in importance, replaced by skills at finding effectiveness, which is why AI/ML’s ascendancy is so timely as it is very powerful in this regard. With processing already being so fast and efficient, it is becoming more relevant to ask are the outcomes it produces as good as such can be. RPA is an example of this, as it has already paid off in extending the utility of legacy systems and midwifing successor technologies, so initial RPA skills are giving way to AI/ML usage skills.
Prof. Marlon Dumas
Marlon Dumas is Professor of Information Systems at University of Tartu and Chief Product Officer at Apromore – a company dedicated to developing process mining and AI-driven process optimization software. While continuing to grow the Apromore product, he conducts a research backed by the European Research Council with the mission of developing AI-based techniques for automated discovery of business process improvement opportunities. He is a widely published researcher, having co-authored over 350 scientific articles, 10 patents, and a textbook (Fundamentals of Business Process Management) used in more than 400 universities worldwide.
WWW: Company website
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
There are currently two major forces clashing in the field of BPM.
On the one hand, there is a strong demand for ROI. Business leaders expect BPM initiatives to consistently deliver measured business value in rather short timeframes (not measurable value, but measured value).
On the other hand, the rapid evolution in AI technology is creating new and enhanced possibilities for driving process change and improvement. In particular, GenAI and agentic AI are opening a very wide spectrum of new automation affordances.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
At any given point in time, there might be hundreds of points in an end-to-end process where deployment of GenAI or agentic AI can add business value. And that is just in one process! When you look at an entire organization, the number of process improvement investments that potentially can add value is in the order of thousands.
From this vast space of improvement opportunities, BPM teams need to pick the ones that will predictably deliver the high ROI that business leaders demand.
So what do we need? We need the ability to evaluate the impact of improvement opportunities rapidly and reliably. We need tools and methods to locate the largest improvement opportunities in our processes and to quantify the improvement magnitude we can get from each of those opportunities. In other words, we need digital process twins that allow us to reliably simulate the impact of changes across one or more processes.
This is why I have no doubt that data-driven analysis (e.g. process mining) combined with simulation, are the key capabilities that BPM teams need to acquire now, if they have not done so yet.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
I recently gave a talk summarizing the state of the art in digital process twins and data-driven simulation in a webinar of the Auto-Twin consortium. It introduces the basic concepts and techniques in the field with pointers to tools.
https://youtu.be/LRVP0uAe55M?si=RxuvivSfMlVfzKgP
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Manual process mapping is losing relevance. We are seeing new approaches to process mapping and process understanding that combine automated process discovery (process mining) and LLMs to create semantically-rich models.
Agentic AI is in hype mode. Beware of big promises in this space. Stick to pragmatic approaches where agents are used to semi-automate specific tasks or small workflows within broader processes, under human supervision.
Prof. Mahendrawathi ER
Mahendrawathi ER is a full Professor and the Head of the Enterprise Systems Laboratory in the Information Systems Department, Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia. She specializes in Business Process Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, and Supply Chain Management and has written books in all three domains. Her research interests include entrepreneurial process management, inclusive business process management and digital transformation. Her research has been published in various academic journals. She is passionate about applying process-oriented approaches to empower individuals and organizations to drive positive societal impact and contribute toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
Since November 2024, Mahendra has served as an Advisor on Business Process Management for Naima Sustainability. She has been actively promoting BPM adoption in Indonesia through speaking engagements and consultancy services for both government agencies and private companies.
Additionally, she is one of the founders of the Indonesia Business Process Management Association (IBPMA) – https://sites.google.com/view/ibpma/id
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mahendrawathierawan
What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
The global megatrends demand that the BPM community adapt to different challenges and be prepared to answer it with a different approach, skills and mindset.
My answer comes from my experience as an academic from a country where BPM is not (yet!) as popular as in other parts of the world and my research on Inclusive BPM. The megatrends potentially amplify existing inequalities and create new challenges for marginalized communities. Climate change may disproportionately impact vulnerable populations. Demographic shifts require us to design processes that are inclusive and accessible to all. Digital technologies and AI can amplify the digital divide and exacerbate biases if not implemented thoughtfully.
Therefore, process management must evolve to be more context-aware, equitable, and ethical. Organizations must:
• Tailor BPM Approaches: Develop context-specific BPM solutions that are tailored to the unique needs and challenges of the communities they serve, particularly those at the bottom of the pyramid, marginalized groups, and those facing gender inequality.
• Address Systemic Inequalities: Use BPM as a tool to challenge and address systemic inequalities by designing processes that create opportunities for those who are often excluded.
• Prioritize Ethical Considerations: Ensure that BPM implementations prioritize the rights and well-being of vulnerable populations, actively working to avoid unintended harm and promote positive outcomes.To adapt to this new reality, organizations must embrace a new approach to BPM that is rooted in inclusivity, social responsibility, and ethical conduct. Process management must become a strategic enabler of organizational resilience, agility, and long-term value creation in a rapidly changing world for all people, irrespective of origin and/or condition.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Building on the need for inclusive and responsible BPM, I think these are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes for different BPM roles in 2025:
I. BPM Leader (Manager, Director, VP of BPM/Process Excellence)
Skills:
• Strategic Vision: Ability to align BPM initiatives with broader organizational goals and social responsibility.
• Communication and Influence: Ability to communicate the importance of inclusive BPM and to influence decision-makers.
• Ethical Governance: Knowledge of ethical frameworks and best practices for AI and data management.Techniques:
• Stakeholder Engagement: Facilitating discussions and gathering input from diverse stakeholders, especially those often marginalized.
• Impact Measurement: Implementing metrics to track the social and environmental impact of BPM initiatives.Behaviors/Attitudes:
• Commitment to Equity: A genuine belief in the importance of creating a more just and equitable world.
• Openness and Humility: Willingness to listen to feedback, learn from others, and adapt approaches as needed.II. Business Process Architect/Owner
Skills:
• Contextual Design: Ability to tailor processes to specific community needs and cultural nuances.
• Bias Detection: Ability to identify potential biases in process design and to develop mitigation strategies.
• SDG Integration: Understanding of the Sustainable Development Goals and ability to incorporate them into process design.Techniques:
• Participatory Design: Co-creating processes with community members and end-users.
• Value Stream Mapping with a Social Lens: Analyzing value streams to identify opportunities to create social and environmental value.Behaviors/Attitudes:
• Empathy and Cultural Sensitivity: Deeply understanding the experiences and perspectives of diverse communities.
• Commitment to Social Responsibility: A sense of responsibility for creating processes that benefit both the organization and society.III. Process Analyst and Methodologist
Skills:
• Data Analysis for Equity: Ability to use data to identify and address biases in existing processes.
• Responsible AI Implementation: Knowledge of ethical AI principles and practices.
• Impact Assessment: Ability to quantify the social, environmental, and economic impacts of process changes.Human-centered skills:
• Empathy and Active Listening: Ability to deeply understand the experiences and perspectives of individuals involved in the process.
• Qualitative Data Gathering: Expertise in conducting interviews, observations, and focus groups to gather insights into human needs and pain points.
• Process Mapping with a Human Lens: Ability to visualize processes from the perspective of the people involved, identifying areas of friction, confusion, or frustration.
• Accessibility Standards: Knowledge of accessibility standards to ensure that processes are inclusive and usable by everyone.Techniques:
• Empathy Mapping: Creating visual representations of user needs, feelings, and motivations to inform process design.
• Customer Journey Mapping: Mapping out the end-to-end customer experience, identifying touchpoints and opportunities for improvement.
• Participatory Process Design: Involving stakeholders directly in the process design to ensure that their needs are met.
• Human-Centric BPM: Focuses on improving the human aspects of the process while designing the workflow. This includes user-friendly interfaces and considering the human element.Behaviors/Attitudes:
• Advocacy for Fairness: Proactively seeking ways to make processes more equitable and inclusive.
• Curiosity and Open-Mindedness: A genuine desire to understand the human side of processes.
• Advocacy for User Needs: A commitment to advocating for the needs of process users and ensuring that their voices are heard.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
To learn the fundamentals of BPM, I recommend two books:
• Marlon Dumas, Marcello La Rosa, Jan Mendling and Hajo Reijers, 2018, Fundamentals of Business Process Management. Also, the videos from the four professors widely available via YouTube.
• Mathias Weske, 2024, Business Process Management Concepts, Languages, Architectures.Follow the BPM thought leaders on LinkedIn, such as Michael Rosemann, Jan vom Brocke, Caspar Jans, and many others.
I would also encourage you to read more on universal design and ability by design concepts to apply it to process design.
If you want to be part of learning, discussing and formulating Responsible BPM, I would like to invite you to join us in Seville for Responsible BPM Forum https://www.bpm2025seville.org/calls/responsible-forum/
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
I believe some of the basic skills about process will remain, but certainly some must be enhanced or extended with the latest technology.
Michael Fox
Michael Fox is a Managing Director at Action Advisory. He also runs a Process Nerd Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@miketheprocessnerd
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
I believe AI has become pertinent in the delivery of process improvement. It’s allowing analysts to go further and starting to decrease the requirement for very technical implementations. It’s also allowing it to happen at speed and scale. I’m currently implementing an ERP for a customer in Rapid Platform. ChatGPT has helped me construct the database structures and align the processes in a way that makes sense for business use, and then implement them. I’ve been able to do 95% of this as a non-technical analyst, basically eliminating the need for deep technical expertise from a developer.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
How various processes come together and affect one another is more critical than ever. Getting the basics right before getting technical. For example, it’s plausible for a procurement process to impact that of production. Work orders should be created when a procured set of items is received. This is the overlap of business functions that process cuts through.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
The APQC and SCOR frameworks help show the process angles of various business functions, as well as understanding business and the people in them (The E-Myth and 5 Dysfunctions of a Team have been recent good reads).
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
I think the way we traditionally think about process improvement delivery is going to take a drastic shift. The skills required to implement a process are consolidating.
Prof. Renata Gabryelczyk
PhD, DSc, an Associate Professor at the University of Warsaw. She is Head of the Department of Management and Information Technology at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. Her academic experience includes involvement in research projects, research fellowships at several universities in Germany and Austria, and numerous publications in national and international publishers. Her research interests include business process management, performance management, facility management, and IT applications. She is a member of the program board of the Polish Certificate of BPMN at the Polish Academy of Sciences, a member of Polish Scientific Society of Economic Informatics, a member of the Technical Committee for Facility Management of the Polish Committee for Standardization, and a member of Polish Chapter of AIS (PLAIS). She serves as Managing Editor in the Central European Economic Journal and as Senior Editor in the Information Systems Management journal.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Global megatrends reinforce existing BPM applications while simultaneously creating new challenges for BPM. Sometimes, these challenges are somewhat imposed—such as in the areas of climate change and sustainability, where regulatory pressure, like ESG requirements, forces greener processes and the monitoring of environmental performance.
In the context of demographic shifts, it is crucial to highlight workforce transformation and population aging, which may lead to shortages of skilled labor, particularly those capable of distinguishing reliable AI-generated content from noise. BPM can play a key role here in managing knowledge within business processes. I believe that in the future, the most sought-after professionals will be those who can assess the credibility and reliability of information.
To navigate these megatrends, organizations must adopt a more adaptive BPM approach—one that is both flexible and secure, built upon well-established architectures of processes. Organizations must understand the timeless truth that technology alone does not drive economic outcomes—process changes do.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
The greatest real business value comes from combining strategic, analytical, and technological competencies. Technology should not be implemented just because it is trendy or because others are using it, but because it supports the execution of the strategy and its impact can be measured. Additionally, a deep understanding of the industry and the specific nature of the organization, along with systems thinking and interdisciplinarity, play a crucial role. Since interdisciplinarity requires people from different areas to communicate effectively, soft skills are becoming increasingly valuable.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
As an academic teacher, while also highlighting how the university curriculum should evolve, I believe that we should continue providing students with a strong foundation supported by high-quality textbooks, case studies, highly cited research articles featuring the latest findings, and reputable online courses. However, to foster holistic thinking, connect strategy with technology, and solve real organizational problems, collaboration between academia and business—along with access to real data—is more crucial than ever.
Paul Holmes-Higgin
Dr Paul Holmes-Higgin, Fellow and co-founder of Flowable. Previously, as co-founder and CPO of Alfresco Paul brought Activiti to the fore of the company’s innovation. A long-time Open Source advocate, he believes it has an important role to play in making today’s innovation more widely available. His PhD and background in AI gives him a deep understanding of the opportunities and realities of Machine Learning. Paul sees innovation around the standard models of BPM as the best way to bring together his passions for human-centred software and intelligent automation in today’s highly dynamic business and social environment.
WWW: https://flowable.com
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Many of us hope that businesses will consider their impact on the climate, but recent political changes have [heavily edited rant] shown that Big Tech billionaires and others are more motivated by wealth accumulation. AI will continue to consume significant energy and water resources, even with smarter training approaches – and this translates to high financial cost of use at scale. In turn, this means that business can optimize their bottomline by not throwing everything at AI services (thereby indirectly reducing their climate impact). Instead, they can use BPM and Case Management (e.g. CMMN) tools to manage appropriate and allowable use of AI services in specific contexts. Modern open source process and case engines can scale massively with low compute resources, ensuring their impact, both on finance and climate, are not a primary concern.
AI, along with demographic and other technology shifts, is ushering in a period of unpredictability and volatility for businesses and employees. This is also where BPM and CM tools can be a benefit by digitizing business processes, all the while allowing well-designed implementations to be agnostic about the AI service they can use in the future, as well as providing auditable guard-rails and human oversight for the emerging AI offerings. This can be even to the extent of A/B testing of AI offerings and parallel outcome validation. Of BPM technologies, CMMN is the ideal open standard container for AI-based automation of business applications.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Something that BPM practitioners should already be doing as best practice – building for change and the ever more rapid iteration of business applications. Hands-on experimentation with AI services is critical to implement their use in ways that are robust, reliable and regulatory sound; evolving new patterns for blending traditional services, AI and human interaction.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
Books on the current, rapidly changing field of AI are out of date before they’re published, however, getting an understanding of the basics provides a valuable point of reference. The fundamentals were being defined decades ago, so even a 25 year-old free book such as http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~yjc32/project/ref-NN/Gurney_et_al.pdf allows you to get deep enough into some of the math(s) and concepts without the complex architectural aspects of current GenAI melting your brain.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Personally, I think much of RPA, Process Mining and Analytics gets squeezed by the use of AI. Though, there’s still a place for some of that technology as an efficient runtime for well-understood use cases, for cost and predictability reasons. Otherwise, it’s too early to say what other significant areas AI is going to help optimize the definition and execution of business activities!
Prof. Thomas Hildebrandt
Thomas Hildebrandt has since 2018 been full professor at the Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen University and founder of the research section for Software, Data, People and Society. Thomas has been working as PI and co-PI on inter-disciplinary research and development projects jointly with industry partners in the area of technology and methods for business and workflow management systems for more than 20 years and has and has been a senior PC member of the BPM Conference for several years. Thomas initiated the research on DCR Graphs in 2008 and has since then led the research in collaboration with his research groups and Morten Marquard, the CEO at DCR Solutions. Thomas is also an active speaker on AI and digitalization for industry and public sector organisations and is member of the Danish Standards group for AI, who is part of the European (CEN/CENELEC) and Global (ISO) standardization bodies.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
The megatrends are at the same time making BPM even more relevant than before, but also challenge how we think of and implement BPM. Climate change and the demographic shifts obviously increase the need for more efficient business processes, not only with respect to speed but also with respect to energy efficiency.
Digital technologies and AI enable automation in BPM, but organizations must careful to select sustainable solutions. Using the new energy hungry technologies based on large artificial neural networks will neither be a sustainable nor a reliable solution to process automation. However, there is still a huge potential in implementing no-code solutions that will allow organizations to take ownership on their digital processes in a trustworthy and maintainable way.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
A crucial skill will be to be able to know which techniques to use for which problems, in particular the different types of AI, but also the different kinds of approaches to digitalization and automation of business processes and decisions. We have for 50 years been too focused on business process management based on process flow graphs that gets too rigid and difficult to maintain. There is now a new generation of rule and event-based no-code business process management technologies that enable domain experts to.take ownership of their and paves the way for flexible hyper automation that can be adapted when business processes needs to be changed.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
The old approach to business process management and automation is still dominant in the literature and online courses. I am recommending the excellent book Enabling Flexibility in Process-Aware Information Systems Challenges, Methods, Technologies written by Manfred Reichert , Barbara Weber https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-642-30409-5 to all my students and also use it for teaching and thesis supervision. The book lays a great foundation both for the classical imperative approach but also the challenges in making flexible business process prepared for change and the declarative approach to BPM. However, the book is now more than 12 years old, so it does not cover the latest developments where we now have mature design and execution tools for declarative process management, such as the tools from DCRSolutions.net that are embedded in full scale enterprise information management systems such as KMD WorkZone (https://www.kmd.net/press/press-releases/nec-collaboration-brings-kmd-workzone-to-the-united-kingdom) from NEC. The approach behind the tools are described in a large number of research papers that can be found mainly in the BPM conference series https://bpm-conference.org/ but also at DCRSolutions.net.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
A crucial skill that never stop being relevant is the skill to describe the activities, goals and rules of your business in a clear and unambiguous way. This also includes describing scenarios and simple ideal ways to perform a process. However, with mature declarative process design and execution tools it is less relevant to learn how to model very complex BPMN processes, since they can more easily be described in a maintainable and adaptable way using a declarative approach. A hyped skill is that of “prompt engineering”, which does not really deserve the term engineering, since it is not based on any kind of exact or reliable methods.
Martin Holling
Industrial Engineer with 25+ years of experience in Business Process Management from operational implementation and improvement over QM, strategic development, process design and consultancy mainly in global corporations from small to more than 400.000 employees, focusing on Culture, people and continual improvement. Making use of broad experience in QHSE auditing, process documentation and project management implementation.
For further information about me and my ideas on BPM, you can have a look at both my LinkedIn profile and my website: https://living-processes.de/home-en/
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
All these global megatrends do have one impact on people and business in common: They force people, culture and business to get more and more flexible and adapt to change. This is happening faster and faster, more and more profound so people feel more and more uneasy with their future and how work will be going forward.
BPM/process management can support people during these fast changing times by providing clear frames, boundaries and guidelines on how to develop culture and business going forward to embrace the change and implement it in the daily work / develop clear strategies on moving on.
Nevertheless BPM in itself needs to provide enough flexibility to adapt to changes on a pretty fast pace. Stiff structures and “carved in stone” SOPs will not help but communication, collaboration and a common understanding of the need to have both flexibility and clear guidance will propel BPM into a bright future.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Openness to change needs, clear communication and flexible collaboration skills are the number one skill. For sure also techniques like process documentation, process mining process automation and also the integration of AI into these areas will help, but they are all nothing if the BPM practitioner cannot transport these techniques into the mind of the users or even sell them to the management. The biggest skill need for BPM practitioners is project- and change management. Hard skill techniques can more easily be trained to people but soft skills and culture change is the hardest to achieve and takes the longest. But without it, BPM, automation and digitalization will fail over time.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
Soft skills are best learned by collaborating, doing it and learning from communities. Take books and articles or maybe courses to learn the technological skills but implementing them, learning how to embrace change, how to collaborate and how to best transport ideas into the minds of the people is a longer task and involves a lot of communication, collaboration and trial and error with good best practice learnings. Use the communities to get to know how others did it and put your ideas and implementation task to the test.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Once AI has reached a point where transforming any spoken or written process description into a process model in any desired notation, documentation, digital workflow, RPA or process simulation, the skills of documenting and modelling processes will no longer be needed.
Although I can see some development into that direction at some BPM tool providers, we are not yet there, but I think this will be one of the useful implementations of AI in BPM.
Being a technical specialist will become more and more unimportant compared to the communication, collaboration and project-/change- management skills.
From my point of view the BPM practitioner really needs to develop more and more into a culture-, communication-, and management- role and move away from the technical expert to not being replaced by AI.
Caspar Jans
Caspar is a seasoned BPM professional with 25 years of experience in various industries. From managing a center of excellence on BPM for a global manufacturing company, hosting a podcast on BPM and consulting large enterprises on the benefits of a process centric approach to being a Principal BPM Expert for Celonis, Caspar has been on both sides of the table on process management (and more). On top of that, Caspar is listed in the PEX Network Global Top 25 though leaders on Operational Excellence.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
The reality is becoming more complex by the year, partly because we start to understand better how the various parts that make the world go round fit and interact together. This also means that organisations need to deal with much more regulation than ever before and BPM is one of the best ways of dealing with this tsunami of legislation and regulation. AI and all of its related technological benefits enable an even better understanding of the interconnectedness of the various parts of an organisation and that’s why, at least in my view, we need a better fundament underneath our organisation (=BPM). No AI without PI (process intelligence).
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Business analytics is still a required skill, but with the addition that the level of detail that a business analyst will have go down to has become much higher (and thus more complex). Process mining has made tremendous progress over the last decade and has established itself as a default transparency and analytics platform (basically pushing out traditional BI). The reason for this is that process mining can deliver the necessary level of details in order to quantify the benefits of process optimisation. Furthermore, change management and communication skills remain to be underrated in importance and ignored too much. Finally, skills around continuous improvement still remain incredibly useful as they help people to frame and execute proper process optimisations.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
The book Process Intelligence in Action (by Lars Reinkemeyer) is a good place to start, as well as the BPM courses by Roger Tregear. The first twelve episodes of the BPM360 podcast will help you to understand the BPM adoption framework. The last thing to mention is the work that Mirko Kloppenburg is doing to make BPM more human-centric.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Although the art of creating a readable and concise process model is still required, the generic creation of process models is a skill that will be taken over by AI in the next year or two. Traditional business analyst skills (using Excel and BI) will also become obsolete in the near future due to a shift to process intelligence via mining, supported by AI.
Sandeep Johal
Sandeep is a Managing Director & Principal Consultant at Nano Business Technology with over 15 years of Business Process Management and Digital Transformation experience, specifically in enterprise wide system implementation process design, process improvement, strategic sourcing, capability uplift, strategy alignment, thought leadership in energy, utilities & resources; finance; and government bodies across Australia, New Zealand, Middle East, and North America
Sandeep’s consulting takes him to both national and international destinations including the Americas, Middle East, New Zealand and the UK. He is often invited to speak at national and international conferences and is regarded as a contributor to the Business Process Management body of knowledge. He holds a Masters in Information Technology (BPM), an honours in Business Management and a diploma in Mechanical Engineering.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
We are living in a transformative era defined by two powerful forces: climate change and disruptive technologies. From unprecedented natural disasters to the rapid integration of AI-assisted productivity tools, these global megatrends are reshaping industries and societies alike. As a result, process management is evolving beyond traditional goals such as making operations faster, better, and cheaper. Today, the focus is increasingly on responsible and sustainable process management.
A Shift Towards Responsibility
In my years of advocating best practices in process management, I have always emphasised five critical success factors: Time, Cost, Quality, Risk, and Compliance. However, I now believe a sixth factor is essential: Responsibility.This new dimension reflects an organisation’s strategic commitment to not only improve financial performance but also to advance environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals. Responsible process management calls for decision-making that balances operational efficiency with a broader duty to stakeholders and the planet.
AI and Process Management
AI is undeniably the buzzword of the moment. While some fear its disruptive potential, others are harnessing its transformative power. One thing is certain—AI is reshaping organisational processes in profound ways.Agentic AI, which refers to AI systems that can learn and act autonomously, is a prime example. At its core, however, Agentic AI is still a process—one that must be measured, configured, implemented, and improved, just like any other. The key difference? AI agents have the capability to learn and self-optimise, creating unprecedented opportunities for process management innovation.
Future-Proofing Organisations
Process management is not static; it evolves alongside global trends and technological advancements. As practitioners, we must stay agile, informed, and proactive in delivering value to organisations. By integrating responsibility and embracing AI-driven technologies, process management will remain a critical driver for organisational resilience and future growth.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
At the core of process management lies a balance of technical expertise and interpersonal skills. Practitioners must navigate complex information, collaborate with diverse stakeholders, and remain attuned to emerging trends. Success in this field demands four essential traits: analytical, curious, sensitive, and aware.
Analytical
Effective process management relies on the ability to interpret information from multiple sources, identify patterns, and use data to solve problems collaboratively. Analytical skills enable practitioners to uncover insights that lead to meaningful improvements in organisational processes.Curious
Data alone often doesn’t tell the whole story. Curiosity drives practitioners to dig deeper, seeking a genuine understanding of the challenges organisations face. This desire to explore beyond the surface ensures that both tangible and intangible outcomes are addressed in process initiatives.Sensitive
Beyond the technical aspects of process management lies the human element. Practitioners must recognise that behind every process are people with their own experiences and stories. Sensitivity to these dynamics fosters trust and collaboration, helping teams navigate the process management journey together.Aware
Staying informed about global trends, industry shifts, and emerging technologies is crucial for maintaining credibility and delivering contemporary solutions. Awareness enables practitioners to approach problems with fresh perspectives and innovative strategies.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
BPM tool vendors such as Signavio, Celonis, and Apromore offer exceptional resources on their websites, making it easier for curious individuals to stay ahead in the evolving process management landscape. Many of these vendors provide free academy courses and educational materials that help practitioners and newcomers alike deepen their understanding of industry trends and best practices.
In addition to BPM vendors, RPA and automation solution providers, such as Microsoft, are also significant contributors to this space. Like their BPM counterparts, they offer a wealth of learning resources and training materials designed to help organisations leverage automation technologies effectively.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
The core skills of a Process Management Practitioner remain unchanged: they must be analytical, curious, sensitive, and aware. That fundamental expectation has not changed, nor is it likely to anytime soon.
However, what has evolved is the expectation around outputs and documentation.
Organisations today are increasingly impatient with traditional process-based documentation. The emphasis has shifted to a forward-looking focus on achieving the desired target state. Spending significant time and resources on detailed documentation for its own sake is no longer seen as valuable.
Fortunately, advancements in process mining technology are changing the game. These tools now automatically generate detailed process documentation, freeing practitioners to concentrate on more strategic activities. The emphasis is shifting to deeper analysis, problem-solving, and continuous improvement — the skills that truly deliver value.
As process management evolves, practitioners must adapt by staying laser-focused on outcomes, leveraging advanced technologies, and maintaining their analytical curiosity. The ability to interpret insights, design efficient processes, and continually improve will remain valuable.
Emiel Kelly
I have been working “in BPM” for more than 25 years. Most of his time as a consultant and trainer at a BPM software and consulting organization. I helped all kind of companies in their BPM journey. From companies with 5 employees till companies with thousands of employees. From city councils, till investment companies and manufacturers of satellites.
Eight years ago I decided I want to make more impact on one company and joined an Insurance company (5 minutes cycling from my home). Of course I am still ‘doing BPM’ but with a much higher impact because I am part of the team now and fully responsible for the results of my implementations of ‘process things’. I can’t get away with leaving a slide deck behind, anymore 😉
As a hobby, I started my blog ‘Procesje.nl’ in 2011. The goal of this blog is to address the “nonsense” I run into in BPM world. Mainly brought with some irony, but always with the goal to help organizations make their processes perform better and stay away from the non value adding things.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Before I’ll try to tell what I think will be the impact of all these aspects on BPM, I think I first should tell what is BPM in my perspective.
To me BPM is, for each process in your organization, a few combined cycles in which you design, implement, monitor, adjust, measure, analyze and redesign a process. I wrote more about this in one of my blogs: https://procesje.blogspot.com/2016/05/customers-dont-care-about-bpm-cycles.html
BPM; what it is, didn’t change since the Sumerians, but how you can do it changed a lot, of course. Not the less by technology.
So let’s start with some AI. Even my 6 year old daughter can tell this will have a big impact on different aspects of BPM.
In my BPM cycles, “Execution” is on top for a reason. Simply because that’s the most important part of a process. Without executing a process, you don’t have to worry about anything else.
I think AI can have a very big impact on executing a process. Especially in combination with the inner cycle of “monitoring” and “adjusting”. Combined with the digitalization of data, I think in some industries this will lead to big changes. And it already did. For example in production processes. Sensors are measuring the progress of cases and when some cases in the process are “out of goal” AI will sense it and adjust some robots. The good old Andon chord can be brought to the museum, I am afraid.
The self-driving car is a great example of AI combined with my cycles. It executes a trip where the goal might be “Arrive in Amsterdam at least at 17:15”. The goal would be the same for a human driver, but now AI is responsible (in combination with some metal and plastic). During the trip, AI continuously monitors. Of course the road and traffic but also if the desired goals will be reached (will we be in Amsterdam at 17:15?). If not, it analyzes all kind of options to still reach the goal and might adjust the execution. Like a different route or changing the speed. Just like a human driver would do. After the trip all data can be analyzed to learn to improve for the next ride; the outer cycle. This might lead to changes on the car, the way routes are planned, etc.
So yes, AI and digitalization have a large impact on the HOW of BPM. Not on the why.
Talking about the outer ‘’process improvement” cycle; we’ve seen lots of implementations of AI already to support that. For example good old process mining. And that only gets better in analyzing a process and come up with improvement proposals. Hopefully that will help us to get rid of the useless process models is see often: https://procesje.blogspot.com/2016/05/process-models-really-helpful-for.html
The aspect of “digital technologies” is a big driver for all this of course. Without sensors and digital data, the self-driving car will go nowhere.
But “simple” ways of digitalization has had its impact on BPM for decades. From OCR (do you still remember how amazed we were?), to QR codes, to fancy dashboards, to chatbots; all kinds of “digitalizing the analog” that has a big impact on how processes can be executed, managed and improved nowadays.
Another one big impact of AI on BPM, but more on organizations and their customers is the use of AI by criminals. It’s so easy to create content to fool you and get you into (financial) trouble. Thinking about that, maybe that’s the biggest impact we might see. You always have to be aware if things are real or getting fooled. I think this will costs organizations a lot of effort and money. First of all for protection and security but also to fix things when their customers were fooled and thought they were interacting with your organization. I see it at my the company I work for; we spend a lot on be prepared for security breaches. Time and money we cannot spend on developing better products, services and processes for our customers.
BPM and climate change? BPM and demographic shifts? I think I’ll talk about that in the context of the next question.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
First of all; don’t forget that processes are just a means; a means to deliver a product or a service.
Also don’t forget that (what most of us call) BPM is also a means; a means to make those processes perform.
Without customers and their need for the result of those processes, those processes aren’t needed at all. Let alone managing them.
So I think a very important skill when you are into BPM (but most wouldn’t call it a BPM skill) is understanding what problems your (future) customers have. Always start at the end; what problems should our (future) processes solve?
Brings me back to AI. Especially GenAI. I think GenAI really could help to develop new processes, starting from the problem of (future) customers.
GenAI can help you find out if it is a problem many have, come up with scenario’s to solve it and maybe even select the best scenario. Next, based on that scenario what a proper process result could be to solve the problem. And from there what the process to deliver that result could look like. Some kind of “result based process design by GenAI”.
You could save millions on Big4 powerpoint slides in hours!
This means also understanding the aspects from the previous questions; climate change and demographic shifts. This will definitely impact problems of customers. The might give opportunities or even make your processes obsolete. So continuously monitoring if you are doing valuable things; a skill that shouldn’t be ignored.
Talking about saving; one important skill for me in BPM is ‘finance’; understanding the benefits and cost of processes and all actions and tools to manage and improve them.
In the end companies are not hobbies, so understanding the financial impact of “process things” is important for a BPM practitioner, in my opinion. I’ve seen many time that all kind of process inititiatives were started without understanding the value. So “finance”; don’t underestimate that skill.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
To be honest; I think I turned a little rusty to answer this question, because I am not hardcore into BPM anymore (do you remember the fun days of all the debates on the BPM.com forum?).
Of course the insurance company I work for now has processes, we try to manage and improve them, but I wouldn’t call my self a “BPM guy” anymore.
But I love the step I took. Because when I was in BPM consulting and training, it was never for my own processes. Of course my advices where the best, but still I missed the feeling with the real processes of the companies I worked for.
So I think domain knowledge is something very valuable when it comes to helping organizations with BPM (maybe I should have noted this at the skills question)
So resources; for me it’s mainly some groups and people on Linkedin. From there some blogs and books.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Everything in me shouts old school process modeling! But that wouldn’t be completely fair.
Actually I mean making models that cost a lot of effort to produce, but don’t really solve a problem because:
– They are too general, so everyone agrees (and that’s not what you want)
– They don’t help you understand why a process doesn’t perform (see blog mentioned above)
– Modelers where taught not to use more than 5 activities so the model doesn’t tell anything
– The method (e.g. BPMN) was more important than understanding and improving the process,
– It was done by external consultants without much participation of the working class heroes.
– …But who am I? If you think modeling your processes could help, just do It.
GenAI; hold my beer.
Hanneke Loefs-Mos
Hanneke’s motto is “Embrace the Chaos”, creating structure during transitions. She focuses on processes, finance, and systems with a human touch by implementing Business Process Management (BPM) as the crucial link between strategy and operations.
Her diverse background spans Startups (CFO Laevo exoskeletons) and global Corporates (Schiphol Airport/ ETG commodities) across various industries, ensuring a pragmatic and holistic approach. She holds an Executive Master in Finance and Control (EMFC) and is a Black Belt Six Sigma, currently operating as an independent professional.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Climate change will disrupt supply chains. To mitigate risks, organizations will need to build in flexibility (slack) since efficiency alone (e.g. Just-in-time production) won’t be enough to ensure reliable output. It’s also essential to integrate sustainability into processes to reduce environmental impact and comply with regulations such as the CSRD.
Demographic Shifts: Aging populations and skill shortages will drive the need for further optimization and automation. To ensure knowledge transfer from retiring employees, clear documentation will be key.
Introduction of GenAI will increase the need for mature process management. Businesses will need a solid foundation in process understanding and data management for GenAI to be effective. A new model notation might emerge to facilitate clear instructions and well-defined restrictions needed for GenAI processes.
A Modular Process Architecture is essential for continuous change without disrupting operations. This modular approach enhances agility and flexibility, allowing businesses to quickly adapt to new technologies and changing market conditions.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Develop a multidisciplinary skillset that breaks through traditional silos and encourages cross-functional collaboration. This includes knowledge in areas like AI, Data, Mining and Risk Management. Aligning with various disciplines ensures a holistic approach.
Aim for pragmatic and achievable results rather than striving for perfection. BPM Professionals often have a “nerdy” specialist image, which can lead to them being surpassed by the organization and missing opportunities to add value.
Foster a culture of innovation and creativity within the company. Encourage employees to experiment with new ideas and approaches to drive continuous improvement. Embrace the concept that learning about AI involves actively engaging and experimenting with AI technologies.
Enhance your communication and empathetic skills to understand the intrinsic motivations of people within the organization. Facilitate their needs to unlock their full potential.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
A startup internship😉 can be incredibly beneficial for employees from larger corporations, as Industry 5.0 emphasized agility and flexibility. The exposure to disruptions with minimal resources fosters a culture of innovation and adaptability. When done right, the employees become antifragile, positively influencing the development of plans and frameworks that are suited for a complex and ever-changing context.
“Successful Architecture Implementation” by Roland by Roland Woldt. As a Beta Reader I can confidently say this book is a must-read for all Business Process Management professionals as a practical guidance for Architecture implementation.
“Digital Transformation Success” by Michael Schank emphasizes the importance of the Process Inventory Framework in achieving alignment and delivering results by bridging organizational silos and enhancing operational efficiency.
“Ethiek rondom gebruik van Data en Algoritmes in de Organisatie” online course by Dr. Stefan Buijsman (Dutch only). It explores the ethical challenges and considerations of using data and algorithms in organizations, emphasizing transparency, accountability, and responsible AI practices.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Lean and Six Sigma, which focusses on eliminating waste, reducing variation, and improving process efficiency. They are highly structured and data-driven methodologies that have been incredibly effective in the past.
Though both methods will always have their place with regards to process optimization, the emerging demands of Industry 5.0 call for a broader and more flexible skillset which emphasizes more on complexity, integration and agility.
Next to that I am curious to learn if Process Mining will become more accessible to SMEs as predicted.
Prof. dr. Amy Van Looy
Prof. dr. Amy Van Looy holds a Ph.D. in applied economics. Before entering academia, she worked as an IT consultant. Being an associate professor at Ghent University, she coordinates the research cluster of “Process orientation” at the Department of Business Informatics and Operations Management. She teaches, among others, courses on research methods, process management, technology innovation and social media. Amy Van Looy is the recipient of the “Highest Award for Achievement” at the Dale Carnegie Consulting Program in 2007, the “Award for Best Contribution” at the OnTheMove Academy in 2010, the faculty’s “PhD Tutor Award” in 2022, as well as paper nominations (e.g., BPM2018, HICSS2025) and paper rewards (e.g., BPM2019). She was nominated in the top-10 for “Young ICT Lady of the year 2014” by the Belgian magazine DataNews, and was recognized as a tech role model by the non-profit “InspiringFifty Belgium” in 2020 (i.e., for being one of Belgium’s 50 most inspiring women in technology).
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
The discipline of business process management (BPM) can benefit from global megatrends in two ways: externally and internally. On the one hand, global megatrends represent external pressures (e.g., also showcasing implications for more customer centricity, sustainability, agility, etc.), requiring organizations to apply BPM in order to properly act in evolving business environments. For instance, in response, organizations can critically rethink their way of working by following the typical BPM lifecycle (of process modelling, deployment, monitoring and optimization). On the other hand, global megatrends offer new opportunities to improve the actual use of BPM itself by advancing the underlying methods and techniques in each phase of the BPM lifecycle.
Overall, while artificial intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies are entering the workspace and affect how employees operate and perform tasks, the BPM discipline provides a more structured and methodological approach to reconsider the related process changes and innovations. For instance, BPM strongly encourages organizations to look at entire end-to-end value streams, including strategic alignment and business-IT alignment lenses. BPM also helps organizations avoid ad-hoc projects that merely follow IT hypes rather than truly creating long-term sustainable business value.
Regarding the latter, BPM is turning more towards the idea of broadly interpreting the notion of sustainability. Not only economic sustainability counts. Voices are raised to reconsider the performance of specific business processes in a more responsible manner by looking at the entire triple bottom line, thus also including a process’ environmental and social outcomes. This is because organizations experience varied pressures to perform, for which they not only need efficient and effective business processes but also environment-friendly processes and processes where employees feel surrounded and truly appreciated. Nevertheless, until present, such wider interpretations of sustainability have often been limited to window dressing for the sake of corporate social responsibility or due to pure reporting reasons (e.g., for regulatory compliance only). In contrast, BPM can be applied to more profoundly reconsider business processes that turn out efficient from a profitable viewpoint, but also become greener and more socially aware. More specifically, our Western World suffers from a skill shortage (especially in terms of advanced digital skills) while employees are increasingly coping with burn-outs. In this regard, BPM can help organizations optimize their overall workload for reasons of inclusion and to obtain a better work distribution among all employees based on data-driven insights. Just one solution is to let employees focus more on specialized tasks rather than no-brainer tasks, which is where automation solutions (such a robotic process automation) play a role. Another solution is to reconsider global value chains by turning to a blockchain approach for obtaining more transparent, trusted and fair value chains, better recognizing the efforts of local farmers or enterprises who are often underpaid or underappreciated (also in the Global South). Nevertheless, this example directly hints at important trade-offs to be made in terms of this triple bottom line thinking since blockchain’s transparency also requires a lot of energy consumption, though.
In sum, I believe that the impact of global megatrends on an organization’s business value can be best assessed by carefully looking at all potential strategic and operational implications, such as the related adjustments in employee’s tasks and underlying value chains. In response, many BPM scholars have already started to investigate how BPM methods and techniques can better include large language models (e.g., for designing, measuring or optimizing processes). Other scholars are focusing more on reconsidering process performance to obtain greener processes that also bring along more employees’ and customers’ wellbeing. It is thanks to such a holistic approach that BPM can truly let organizations adapt themselves to new business realities.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Digital literacy will become even more important in 2025. Global megatrends (to which the previous question is hinting) partly fit into the advancement of a digital economy, for which employees increasingly require digital skills. Although this is an overall need (and not necessarily limited to BPM practitioners), it entails a relevant inclusion risk for vulnerable people on the other side of the digital divide. Digital literacy implies general digital skills (such as critically assessing online information to decrease the risks of fake news and cyberattacks), but also advanced data-driven skills (such as analytics for deriving meaningful business insights and making informed decisions).
Regarding the BPM field in particular, BPM practitioners have always been the bridge between business people and IT staff, demonstrating skills related to change management and problem solving. Such boundary spanning role will become even more important given the following growing needs for BPM’s human talent. First, BPM practitioners need to be prepared for acting in more volatile business environments. We have already experienced the need for resilience in times of the unexpected COVID-19 lockdowns. Similarly, unforeseen changes to value chains will remain, among others due to increasing political instability and other environmental issues. Secondly, more strategic skills are useful to not only look at operational processes but also to critically reflect on the related business models (such as servitization, manufacturing-as-a-service). By looking at both operational and strategic levels, BPM practitioners can more accurately think about disruptive process changes, among other those triggered by digital technologies. Likewise, having innovation skills and interdisciplinary collaboration skills will become indispensable. Finally, given that 2025 will most likely enlighten us more regarding generative AI’s potential, I strongly encourage BPM practitioners to stay ahead of those AI skills for the sake of improving process modelling, improvement and performance management. Just one example is to learn how large language models can help in gathering and interpreting business requirements and process changes based on textual documentation (such as corporate documents, employee interviews, and online customer reviews). More broadly, generative AI can assist in taking meetings notes or decreasing administrative tasks for the sake of human specialization. In this light, AI skills will facilitate creating novel insight out of process data, possibly elevating process mining skills and techniques, and potentially also decreasing workloads.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
I have recently published a handbook about the business opportunities related to emerging technologies, while also reflecting on process innovation by means of artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality, digital twins, blockchain, 3D printing and biochips. This book is available at Springer since the summer of 2024 (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-59770-1). It concerns a practitioner-oriented book covering interviews with scholars and reporting on various real-life case organizations that have rethought their way of working by digital technologies. Based on its layman’s writing style, this book is an interesting resource for getting inspired. Additionally, academic conferences related to business process management allow to get acquainted with the latest developments in the field, such as the International Business Process Management Conference in September, which will be organized in Seville this year.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
I would not necessarily claim that certain BPM skills have become irrelevant or outdated. Instead, BPM activities will especially entail less manual labor and become more digitalized instead. For instance, conventional process methods or techniques (such as Lean and Six Sigma) can still be exploited to run daily business, but will cover much more data-driven support. Additionally, organizations increasingly need to consider how digital technologies may (or may not) provide them with new business opportunities, in addition to purely relying on conventional methods and techniques. Likewise, BPM practitioners should become more open to innovation and learn about exploration. Just a few examples relate to explorative or innovative methods and techniques to think out of the box, to do some experimentation, and to do storytelling. Additionally, methods and techniques that merely focus on the financial or economic value of business process outcomes should rather be replaced by alternatives that also measure the green and social performance of business processes to allow for a more responsible way of doing business. Such broadening in BPM’s scope would help safeguard our planet and keep an eye on wellbeing issues.
Morten Marquard
Morten Marquard has dedicated his entire professional journey to addressing the challenges faced by knowledge workers, including lawyers, social workers, and other professionals dealing with complex work processes. The struggle to navigate these processes efficiently while complying with ever-changing laws and regulations has been a persistent issue. Traditionally, compliance has relied on laborious reading and understanding of lengthy paper-based documents—a cumbersome task that often hinders productivity.
Recognizing the need for a transformative solution, Morten embarked on a mission to leverage technology for the benefit of knowledge workers, not only enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of employees but also alleviating the burden of manual compliance checks and reducing stress levels.
Morten realized the limitations of using Business Process Model and Notation, BPMN, to streamline process digitalization as the rigidity of the processes failed to meet the requirements of end-users. It was during this critical juncture, approximately 15 years, that Morten collaborated with professor Thomas Hildebrandt, and together, they propelled the development of dynamic condition response graphs, DCR. This innovative approach has since been embraced by over 40 different customers, primarily in Denmark, with expanding reach into international markets such as Italy and the United Kingdom.
Morten’s journey exemplifies a commitment to pushing the boundaries of technology to empower knowledge workers, offering them a more streamlined and stress-free approach to managing their intricate work processes. The impact of his work extends far beyond national borders, contributing to a global shift in how organizations approach digitalization and compliance in the modern age.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Edwards Deming once said, “If you cannot describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing!” But still today, many organizations struggle to describe their processes correctly. Often, process models reflect an idealized “happy path” that do not match reality. Process mining has exposed this disconnect, revealing inefficiencies, compliance risks, and the heavy manual work required to bridge the gap.
Looking ahead, global megatrends—including climate change, demographic shifts, digital transformation, and AI—are forcing organizations to rethink how they manage processes. Due to an aging population, Europe faces a big labor shortage, making process efficiency and automation key for economic resilience. At the same time, AI-driven solutions must be energy-efficient. Generative AI, while powerful, is extremely energy-intensive, while symbolic AI provides explainable, transparent automation with much lower energy consumption.
BPM must move from rigid, static workflows to flexible, AI-assisted process models. The shift is already happening. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently pointed out, SaaS is dead, and business logic is moving into AI-driven agents. The process layer is no longer an afterthought—it’s becoming the glue between AI agents and business operations, making adaptation much easier without being locked into monolithic ERP or CRM systems.
With process mining, organizations can identify how work actually happens and optimize it without disrupting operations. AI can take this a step further—reading laws, regulations, and policies to extract digital rules that can be verified automatically. The goal? Automatic compliance. In financial services alone, AML (anti-money laundering) compliance costs billions every year, but is still not very effective. With the right BPM strategies, this burden can be reduced a lot.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
To create value in 2025, BPM practitioners must learn new skills that go beyond traditional process modeling.
Generative AI can help translate long, document-based processes into declarative process models that work as blueprints for AI-driven execution. It can also analyze regulations and identify which rules must be digitalized so computers can verify them automatically, making compliance much more efficient.
Processes are not static; they change over time. A mortgage approval process running for decades will need to adapt due to new regulations, economic shifts, and technology. BPM formalisms must support real-time adaptability even when processes are already running. With BPMN, this would be almost impossible, as its rigid structure makes modifying live processes complex and risky. Declarative models, on the other hand, allow for flexible adaptation without breaking compliance or execution.
Process mining shows how work actually happens in reality. BPM practitioners must connect these insights with declarative modeling to improve processes dynamically, instead of trying to force-fit work into predefined flows.
Beyond technical skills, BPM professionals need to challenge assumptions, work iteratively, and collaborate across disciplines. AI and automation will not replace BPM experts—but those who fail to adapt to an AI-driven future might struggle to stay relevant.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
For those looking to deepen their declarative BPM expertise, here are some key resources:
• https://documentation.dcr.design – Our portal with documentation, examples, videos, and articles on declarative process modeling and AI-driven BPM.
• Upcoming book by Thomas Hildebrandt & Co. – This book will introduce the DCR methodology for structuring process knowledge, showing how to extract insights beyond just event sequences.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
• BPMN – Overrated & Misleading
o BPMN has long been considered a standard, but process mining has shown that real-world processes don’t fit into rigid, predefined flows.
o People think they understand BPMN, but often get it wrong, leading to models that others cannot understand.
o It shifts focus away from actual work and makes compliance extremely difficult.• The Myth of the “Perfect Process”
o Lars Reinkemeyer (Siemens, now Celonis) put it best: “There is no such thing as a happy path.” – https://www.celonis.com/customer-success-stories/siemens-digital-transformation-process-mining/
o Too much time is spent searching for the perfect process instead of focusing on solving real-world problems dynamically.• Full Automation is Overhyped
o The best BPM strategies don’t replace humans but facilitate their work—ensuring tasks, approvals, and decisions happen at the right time. A process can be 100% automated while still relying on human input where needed.
o Ask yourself: How often do you face a broken process? Check your inbox. Every email received or sent is a sign of a process that could be facilitated by a computer.
Derek Miers
Derek Miers is a well-known Industry Analyst and Technology Strategist, publishing a great many papers and product assessments. Derek worked as an independent BPM Industry Analyst from 1992-2010 when he joined Forrester Research. After 2 years as a leader of the BPM practice, he took on a leadership role to grow the Business Architecture practice – across these two domains he has published more than 60 research reports with in Forrester. He also made significant contributions to Forrester’s Customer Experience (CX) research, developing comprehensive methods, techniques and engagement practices around Target Operating Models and Business Transformation. In 2014 he became a Principal Consultant helping clients apply these methods to challenging change and transformation projects.
Within Gartner, Derek picked up the intelligent Business Process Management Suites (iBPMS) Magic Quadrant and Critical Capabilities (MQ/CC), before establishing the RPA MQ/CC efforts and more recently, the Enterprise Architecture Tools MQ/CC.
Over the years, he has carried out a wide range of consulting roles including establishing and facilitating change initiatives, running hundreds of training courses, undertaking detailed technology selection assessments and project-risk assessment studies. Other engagements have involved the provision of strategic consulting advice – from facilitating board level conversations around BPM and CX initiatives, through to establishing effective Centers of Expertise, and helping clients develop new business models.
Clients have included several Fortune 100 firms, major governmental organizations and NGOs.
His experience within the BPM community ranges back to the mid 80’s when he started developing process oriented approaches.He is co-author of the BPMN Modeling and Reference Guide (along with Dr Stephen White of IBM, the main author of that specification). He read Civil Engineering in New Zealand before entering the IT industry in the 70’s and completed an experimental MBA equivalent at London Business School. He has taught at INSEAD, Cass Business School (London), University of Linz, University of Stockholm and University of Porto.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Climate change and demographic shifts will only exacerbate an already ultra-competitive work environment. However, the next shiny object on the horizon – some fancy new technology such as AI Agents or Process Mining – will not deliver any real sustainable change without your employees stepping up to the plate to make it happen.
That means you have to ENGAGE your people to want to change – to involve them in cocreating and reinventing how the organization delivers value. That usually means fundamentally rethinking from the outside-in what customers and external parties want/need rather than merely automating and existing set of steps.
The good news is that AI Agents (or is it Agentic-AI) and other technologies offer the opportunity to engage in that rethinking … but these technologies still need threading and weaving together with your workforce to create a viable (and sustainable) value proposition. So yes, orchestration is still very much needed and one only has to read the pages of LinkedIn to realize that many of the BPM vendors have a grip on how to organize that part (e.g. Camunda’s recent release). One thing that’s often missed in implementation is some deep thinking about the data that you will use to help train and focus the value delivery mechanisms.
But you still need to engage your people in developing a vision for how you are going to make that step change in customer value. One thing that hasn’t changed – the soft stuff (people engagement) is still the hard stuff – it’s mobilizing employee’s brains and thinking.
Nathaniel Palmer
Nathaniel Palmer is the CEO of Infocap®, a leading innovator in Intelligent Automation technologies. He is a pioneer in automation and digital transformation, serving as Chief Architect to several of the largest and most complex initiatives across government and private industry, totaling over $3.5 Billion in research and development. He is a best-selling author, speaker, practitioner, and rated as the “#1 Most Influential Thought Leader in Business Process Management (BPM)” by independent research. He has co-authored 15 books on technology and business transformation including “Gigarends” released Feb’24 which reach #1 for AI on Amazon’s Hot New Releases and is the 2019 recipient of the “Marvin L. Manheim Award for Significant Contributions in the Field of Workflow” as well as the first individual awarded “Laureate in Workflow.”
WWW: www.infocap.ai
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
Across various missions of sustainability, BPM can optimize processes to minimize waste, integrate relevant metrics into workflows, and ensure compliance with environmental standards as well as to prioritize energy-efficient operations or circular economy principles. But arguably the most impactful “gigatrend” is the shift to an aging population globally and regional declines in population growth. Regions seeing growth among younger, tech-savvy workforces while increasing come from areas outside of historically developed economies. This trend among others have already begun to shift workforce dynamics, customer expectations, and talent availability. BPM still offers a unique leverage point to help adapt processes to accommodate flexible work arrangements, automate repetitive tasks to offset labor shortages, and personalize customer-facing processes to meet diverse demographic needs.
Lastly, tech trends have an inescapable impact. Cloud-native capabilities and “Functions as a Service (FaaS)” accelerate process digitization, enabling real-time data and transparency but also demanding faster adaptation. AI transforms process automation, predictive analytics, and customer interactions, reducing manual effort while raising ethical and governance questions. BPM acts as a strategic enabler by aligning processes with these megatrends. It fosters resilience through continuous improvement, scenario planning, and agile process redesign, enhancing data-driven (albeit not necessarily algorithmic) decision-making, as well as integrating disparate systems, to foster agility in a hyper-connected world.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Process Modeling and Optimization: proficiency in visual modeling—and my personal bias aside I will still argue for the triad of notations (BPMN, DMN, CMMN) —remain a critical skill for any process professional. Even in the face of GenAI or similar “automagical” means for generating process snippets, there remains an imperative to understand how to translate process complexity into well-formed process models. Low Code and “No Code” tools can replace time spent in front of a compiler, but this only hastens the need for modeling proficiency.
Decision modeling: beyond the competency in a particular methodology or notation (DMN, TDM, etc.), far too many BPM practitioners remain stuck in a procedural, “control flow” mindset and struggle to appropriately model business processes and business logic in the declarative, goal/policy-driven manner required for modern automation initiatives (i.e., how we leverage BPM in 2025 vs. 2005). This is both art and science and requires not only a shift in mindset but an understanding of the same methods and techniques for accurately defining deterministic rules and event-driven automation.
Process Mining (et al.): while admittedly tool-driven, process and task mining is de rigueur for any help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025. If you’re not doing it already, get on it!
Lastly are two wildcards, straddling the lines of skills and techniques, are Spatial Computing and Human-Centric Design (HCD). Spatial computing combines AR/VR, 3D mapping, as well as Digital Twin technologies and capabilities ultimately for the objectives of workflow optimization (via automation) and improved human-machine interaction. BPM practitioners should lean into this. Apply BPM lens to leveraging synergies across AR and digital twins to reduce errors, enrich training, and elevate productivity, as well as overlay digital instructions on physical assets and providing real-time performance insights. Future advancements in AI, robotics, and 5G/6G networks promise greater automation, but ethical considerations and workforce disruptions must be managed. This is a key role for the BPM practitioner and will not be satisfied by platforms alone.
Similarly, making the work done by humans more consistent, predictable, and less reliant upon subjective interpretation of policies and rules and by doing so simultaneously expanding the aperture for what is automatable, where digital workers and human workers use the same systems, follow the same rules, as well as are equally observable and accountable. This requires re-envisioning the structure of the task to be not a single, discrete unit of work, but business outcomes, and to remove the distinction between what supports a task and the task itself as well as who performs the work. Applying Human-Centric Design (HCD) reorients work processes around natural human thinking, making them more intuitive, consistent, and predictable. By reducing subjective interpretations of policies, workflows become standardized, ensuring both people and digital workers follow the same clear logic and interfaces. This shared environment increases observability and accountability, as every action is measured uniformly. HCD also shifts the lens from completing discrete tasks to achieving broader business outcomes, embedding support mechanisms within the workflow. This holistic approach removes boundaries between task and task support while enabling humans and digital workers to collaborate, expanding the scope of automation without compromising user experience.
Behaviors BPM Practitioners should follow:
Collaboration: taking the lead to facilitate collaboration across IT, operations, and company/program leadership to align processes with strategy. Be the integrator!
Curiosity and Adaptability: bring your intellectual curiosity to work by proactively exploring new technologies and trends to innovate processes, as well as embracing change and pivoting strategies as megatrends evolve.
Strategic Mindset: make viewing BPM as a business enabler, not just an operational fix, the new vibe in your organization. Understand how to (and do) champion your role as a BPM practitioner to deliver efficiency, agility, and innovation, ensuring organizations can pivot quickly, meet stakeholder expectations, and capitalize on emerging opportunities.
Empathy: Understanding stakeholder needs—employees, customers, and regulators—to design inclusive processes.
Books BPM Practitioners should read:
“Business Process Management: A Rigorous Approach,” by Martyn A. Ould (2005)
“Gigatrends,” by Palmer and Koulopoulos (2024)
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
I may be less cynical than some colleagues, yet many of the core tenets of process management we have applied over the last 30 years have not only stood the test of time but continued to form the basis of effective process management. However, the rapid embrace of automation, analytics and digital-first strategies has diminished the demand for some traditional BPM capabilities — or approaches — including:
Generation after generation of manual diagrams, flowcharts, and binders of documentation have become rather obsolete. Today most teams today leverage cloud-based or collaborative BPM tools that offer version control, real time collaboration, and data driven insights.
Heavy frameworks and siloed methodologies based on rigid, linear project cycles (with little iterative feedback) or siloed roles are being blown away in favor of more agile, cross-functional approaches. Today, successful practitioners must instead partner fluidly with development, data analysts, and automation teams.
Expertise in legacy, on-prem BPM suites that do not have modern integration or automation capabilities may fall out of favor. Instead, knowledge of newer, low-code or no-code process-automation platforms have become key new skills.
Manual gathering of process metrics and spreadsheets powered by 60s tech versus real-time dashboards and automation (e.g., IoT, AI, or process mining powered) are becoming the standard for visibility and reporting. Although these old-school skills and techniques are neither useless nor irrelevant, organizations generally prioritize digital, collaborative and automated approaches to BPM, which necessarily are practiced by practitioners who embrace them.
Not Practically Applicable Yet (Hype):
Fully Autonomous AI-Driven BPM: we are on the cusp of Agentic AI delivering on the promise of the comprehensive business operation systems BPM evangelized over the last 20-years, but never truly delivered. AI isn’t delivering it yet either. Although AI+BPM already offers the capabilities needed to enhance processes in many ways previously out of reach, the reality is that fully self-managing systems lack maturity and require human governance. But by this time next year, that conversation will be different.
Quantum Computing in BPM: quantum applications within BPM or process optimization overall are at best experimental and not yet a reality for anything outside of the lab. Although it may be at least a decade before this is a practical consideration, the thought experiments around Quantum BPM by BPM practitioners will benefit both the thinker and chances for future adoption.
Metaverse-Based Process Management: VR/AR for BPM collaboration has a futuristic feel, which seems like it’s been just around the corner for years, yet still lacks widespread adoption in 2025. Although I don’t fully expect this to change this year, it is certainly closer to reach than quantum computing and worth considering of potential use cases.
Web3, Tokenization, and DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations): less hype than the other three concepts, Web3, tokenization, and Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) can fundamentally reshape BPM by providing trustless automation, transparency, and innovative incentive structures. On-chain records maintain accountability and auditability, enabling processes to be automatically executed on blockchain networks through smart contracts. Today, multiple organizations can work together using the same source of truth, enabled by decentralized ledgers compliance and cross-entity workflows become as easy as it can get. Tokenization enables novel mechanisms for incentivization. Micro-transactions in tokens, for example, may reward tasks completed, or punish non-compliance. Software, content, outputs from the process can all be tokenized for fractional ownership and revenue sharing.
In addition, DAOs radically change governance: stakeholders vote on changes to processes and how resources are allocated, supporting new models of inclusive and transparent decision-making. From supply chain automation, healthcare data management, IT development bounties to even real estate tokenization, there are virtually endless use cases that can significantly improve from leaner operations, expedited settlements and proof of processes. Some of the near-term challenges include regulatory uncertainty, scalability issues, and technical complexities could be barriers to its widespread adoption. Yet BPM practitioners can take the lead to pilot projects with manageable scope, adopt existing DAO frameworks, and encourage cross-functional cooperation to address these problems. Web3 and DAOs are integrative visions for BPM’s future and can provide new efficiencies and collaboration models, leading to overall improved business results.
Björn Richerzhagen
The trained businessman, business economist and business IT specialist is one of the most sought-after BPM experts. The BPM rationalist has been at the interface between departments and technology for two decades now and sees himself as a translator between the worlds. As a BPM consultant and trainer, he is OCEB and CBPP certified and accompanies process initiatives at company level as well as process automation projects as a workflow analyst.
In his private life, the family man is involved in numerous community / charity projects, enjoys traveling (Europe and Africa), listens to a lot of music (everything that has bass) and is an enthusiastic ocean sailor.
WWW: https://www.mi-nautics.com/
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
We do see that most of our customers are aware of those megatrends. Climate change, for example, has created a new discipline of procedural analysis to ensure that process design fulfills environmental requirements and sustains used resources. The demographic shifts mentioned, especially in the western world, are foreseen as the drainage of knowledge from skilled workers. To uphold knowledge and experience in companies, process management, especially process documentation, is utilized to secure process related information at least. This interferes with another megatrend we see. A limited economic growth in most western countries results into cost cuts in many organizations. Hence, management tries to find ways to reduce the amount of effort it takes to discover, document and analyze processes. Often artificial intelligence is regarded as a savior and is applied to increase procedural improvements. Whether or not artificial intelligence can deliver, is to be evaluated in the future. For now, we don’t see an overall AI approach that eliminates process management as a whole. Today, we do see artificial intelligence rather as an endpoint – let’s call it a resource – that can be utilized in some processes. For now, process discovery, process documentation, process analysis, process design, process execution, process controlling can arguably not yet be fully replaced although it might be of help already.
In conclusion, we have seen megatrends passed by over the decades. Process Management remained relevant over the years. If you consider processes as a way to create value in your organization, process management will be there in the future.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
We still see that process management is only done for the sake of regulatory affairs in some companies. To create value, process management needs to be linked to strategic goals for the organization. This asks for a new positioning of process management as a corporate function. Shoulder to shoulder, process management needs to work on reaching corporate goals and strategies. Hence, process managers need to work on their strategy orientation.
Furthermore process management becomes more and more technical. Besides all well- known and battle proven methods of process management, workflow automation, robotic task automation, intelligent document processing, process mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence and such, demand a changed skill set of process managers. That does not make traditional skill sets irrelevant, but the new skills need to be blended in.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
Once you start with process management, you will find plenty of information in books dealing with the BPM topic. Once you progress in that field, you will find out that helpful information is located elsewhere. There are a number of international blogs that I follow. They usually offer good hands-on advice. Personally, I make use of fairs conferences all sorts of meetups to exchange ideas with peers. If you are interested, please check out our reading list on our website.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Fundamentally, all acquired skills will help in the future. All phases of the BPM cycle will stay relevant, although some methods may no longer be intensely applied. We believe ‘value’ will be the key criteria.
E.g., does a holistic, company-wide and detailed documentation of processes create value for the organization? Probably not. Hence. that skill will be less prominent in the future as it will be partially replaced by process mining techniques or maybe even AI. Does that mean, you should give up that skill? It sure does not!
In practice, for example, sometime we see a lacking conceptual understanding of an ‘optimal process’ lead to bad decisions. Evaluating a process is an old skill, but nevertheless useful when it comes to investment decisions or prioritizing initiatives.
Skills only add up. They help understand the current and to future situation. Hence, skills never become irrelevant. I highly encourage everybody who is interested in the BPM field to learn as much as possible about it.
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Rinderle-Ma
Stefanie Rinderle-Ma is a full professor for Information Systems and Business Process Management at the Department of Informatics, Technical University of Munich, Germany. Before Stefanie worked as full professor at the University of Vienna, Austria, where she led the Research Group Workflow Systems and Technology. Stefanie‘s research interests include flexible and distributed process technology, production intelligence, process mining, and digitalized compliance management.
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
As BPM connects people, systems, and the physical world, all trends affect BPM and vice versa. For sustainability, for example, BPM offers the means to quantify the effectiveness of measures, e.g., on CO2 emissions, but also new metrics have to be developed. AI offers great prospects for BPM, e.g., by empowering domain experts in modeling and analyzing processes, but also BPM has the potential to shape AI, e.g., through AI-agentic workflows.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Our experience from several industry projects shows the ongoing importance of modeling skills for domain experts, possibly supported by chatbots, enabling them to express how the process should be, as well as of analysis skills, again potentially AI-supported, to analyze real-world process data. This is key for process understanding and continuous optimization. Moreover, at least basic skills in implementing process-oriented solutions for integrating systems, services, and physical devices (machines, sensors) are crucial.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
There are excellent books and I also strongly believe in hands-on exercises.
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Maybe there are smaller trends with decreasing importance. The main skill set of modeling, analyzing, and implementing processes is and will be crucial to unlock the full potential of BPM in practice.
Kevin Tan
Kevin Tan is a BPMN thought leader, author of BPMN Made Easy with Process-bility, and a business process expert specializing in simplifying complex workflows into digestible visual story models. With over two decades of experience, he has coached organizations like NAB Australia and QBE Australia in BPMN best practices. Kevin is passionate about making process modeling intuitive, actionable, and impactful for digital transformation. His Process-bility framework emphasizes simplicity, visual balance, and storytelling to break down silos and drive real business value. He frequently shares insights on LinkedIn and was a guest speaker at the University of Melbourne and the IIBA Festival of Business Analysis.
WWW: www.process-bility.com
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
BPM has always been about adaptation—understanding the current state, identifying inefficiencies, and enabling organizations to respond effectively to change. These global megatrends fundamentally shift the way businesses operate, and BPM is at the core of ensuring organizations can navigate these shifts with agility.
Climate change forces organizations to rethink sustainability within their processes—optimizing energy consumption, reducing waste, and ensuring compliance with evolving regulations. BPM helps by embedding sustainability KPIs directly into process models.
Demographic shifts, such as aging populations and workforce diversity, impact labor availability and customer expectations. BPM enables organizations to redesign processes for inclusivity, automation, and workforce upskilling.
Digital technologies and AI are not just disruptors; they are enablers of BPM itself. AI-powered process discovery, intelligent automation, and decision analytics transform BPM from a reactive discipline to a proactive, data-driven strategy.
Organizations that embrace Process-bility—making BPM simple, visual, and actionable—will thrive in this new era. Instead of drowning in complex models, BPM practitioners must focus on clarity, enabling businesses to see where they are and where they need to go.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Critical Thinking & Problem Identification: Many rush to solutions, but the value of BPM is in correctly identifying the problem first. “Anyone can provide a solution, few can understand the problem.”
Process Storytelling: If stakeholders don’t understand your BPM model, it’s useless. The ability to translate complex processes into digestible visual story models is key.
AI-Augmented Process Analysis: BPM practitioners must embrace AI-driven insights, but not blindly trust them. AI can accelerate discovery, but human expertise ensures relevance.
Data-Driven BPM: Process without data is like watching a silent movie. BPM practitioners must incorporate data into their models to drive actionable insights.
Collaboration & Change Management: The best BPM models won’t work without stakeholder buy-in. The ability to communicate, influence, and drive change is more valuable than technical skills alone.
Simplicity & Visual Balance: Complexity kills adoption. “Say NO to complexity, say YES to simplicity.” Models must be intuitive, structured, and easy to consume.
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
Books:
BPMN Method and Styles by Bruce Silver
BPMN Made Easy with Process-bility by Kevin Tan
Bruce Silver did an excellent job structuring BPMN through Method and Style. But BPMN is still too complex for many organizations. That’s why I created Process-bility—it takes BPMN beyond just structure, making it intuitive, engaging, and practical for real-world business transformation. It’s all about Storytelling, Visual Balance, and Simplicity—the three principles that make BPMN not just correct, but easy to use.”
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
Overcomplicated BPM Notations: Knowing every BPMN symbol doesn’t make you a good modeler. In reality, 80% of process models only need a small subset of BPMN elements.
Process Automation without Business Understanding: Some assume RPA and AI can replace BPM. They can’t—automation without a solid process foundation just speeds up inefficiencies.
Rigid ‘Waterfall’ BPM Approaches: In 2025, agility matters more than strict adherence to old BPM governance frameworks. Processes must be continuously improved, not just documented and forgotten.
At the end of the day, BPM is not about modelling for the sake of modelling. It’s about making processes clear, actionable, and continuously improving to help businesses thrive in a rapidly changing world. Process-bility is the future of BPM—if it’s not easy to understand, it’s not serving its purpose.
Steve Towers
Steve is passionate about helping people and businesses transform to better ways, with happier lives. Whether that is individuals, teams or companies I apply proven and tested ways from the very best individual and corporate achievers to help you codify your own success, happiness and future.
Named one of the 30 most influential Global Customer Experience Experts in 2022. An experienced business transformation leader with over 40 years of success in driving and achieving organizational goals in both the private and public sectors in a variety of key ‘C’ leadership and top-level consulting positions. Recognized across industries including Business Process Management, Enterprise Architecture, Customer Experience and Lean Six Sigma
WWW: https://www.bpgroup.org
WWW: https://www.stevetowers.com/
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Impact of Global Megatrends on BPM
Global megatrends like climate change, demographic changes, digital technology, and AI are radically altering BPM. These forces push organisations to be more mobile, efficient and sustainable. For instance:
Climate Change
Companies have started to care more about sustainability and carbon emissions. BPM can help by making processes and customer experiences more energy-efficient and environmentally sound.Demographic shifts
As the world’s population ages and changes, BPM will help modernize processes for the global workforce while imparting knowledge.Digital Technologies and AI
With AI and digital technologies added to BPM, data analysis, predictive analysis, and automated routine work are possible with the help of real-time data, resulting in efficient, productive processes. Future-orientated Analytics engines, along with AI, can also make predictions about future processes and integrate experiences.
Learns, Practices, Behaviors, and Mindsets for BPM Experts in 2025
As value-creators for their companies, BPM experts need a combination of technical and soft skills including:
Technical Expertise
Know Process Modeling, Data Analysis, Customer Experience Management, AI and Automation tools.Soft Skills
Critical thinking, problem-solving, communication.Habits and Mentalities
Proactivity, versatility, customer-first mindset.
The Top Courses To Become A BPM Professional
BPM skills: here are some good places to get started:
Books (the good ones)
The Power of Business Process Improvement
10 Easy Steps to Be More Effective, More efficient, and More adaptable
by Susan Page (former Disney University mastermind)Digital Transformation – A Short Primer for the Game Changers
by Peter Fingar, and Jim Sinur (BPM business gurus)Outside-in The Secret of the World Leading companies
by Steve TowersArticles
You can find tons of articles and white papers at BPGroup.org on all kinds of BPM topics.Training
Distance Learning Courses from Coursera, edX and the in-the-room Certified Process Professional® (https://experienceprofessional.com/dubai_cppm) from the BPGroup.org.
Competencies Out of Date
Certain competencies might be obsolete because of technology:
Manual Process Mapping
Manual process mapping is no longer necessary due to the AI/automation trend.Standard Data Entry
Automation tools already handle mundane data entry work, so this expertise is redundant.Enterprise Architecture
Improved software can now produce rich pictures and guidance in double quick time. Architects can direct systems to produce rapid deep dives negating the need for long expensive projects.
Roland Woldt
Roland Woldt is a well-rounded executive with 25+ years of Business Transformation consulting and software development/system implementation experience, in addition to leadership positions within the German Armed Forces (11 years).
He has worked as a Team Lead, Engagement/Program Manager, and Enterprise/Solution Architect on many projects. Within these projects, he was responsible for the full project life-cycle, from shaping a solution and selling it, to setting up a methodological approach through design, implementation, and testing, up to the roll-out of solutions.
In addition to this, Roland has managed consulting offerings throughout their life-cycle, from definition, delivery to update, and had revenue responsibility for them. This also included the stand-up and development of consulting teams, and their day-to-day management. Roland worked as a Vice President at iGrafx, Director in KPMG’s Advisory, as a Practice Director at Software AG/IDS Scheer, and as a project manager at Accenture.
WWW: “What’s Your Baseline?” podcast
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What is the impact of global megatrends such as climate change, demographic shifts, digital technologies, and AI on BPM, and how can process management help organizations adapt to this new reality?
I have seen more implementation of AI in the tools, but it is still on the level of “little helper tools” that will support import of content (i.e., create a model based on a document), or creation of code for process mining data modeling. However, it misses the boat when it comes to the “bigger picture”. I see some attempts to relate data that could be an insight for an analysis (but is no full analysis), it also does not pull in benchmark data or similar.
Additional use cases that I see are the use of AI for governance purposes (e.g., data quality: is all information needed already captured and up-to-date), or for simulation (create all simulation models and run the simulation for these when pressing the “save” button and then weed out the nonsensical results before giving a user a recommendation similar to “if you make this change, the capacity of your process will increase by x%”).
I am a bit reluctant to jump on the “AI will solve every problem” bandwagon and would love to see more use cases being defined and then implemented.
In addition to this, I have also seen more interest in the Sustainability topic (e.g., from ARIS or Mega), but they all fall short IMHO because they don’t talk about and capture the actual emissions data, and they don’t have a reporting engine that is needed to comply with (mostly) the EU regulators. And what I also don’t see is the urgency in picking up this topic — especially here in the US on the federal level — even though companies need to have a significant reduction done by 2030. I just read a study by Accenture from 2022 in which they predict that nearly all (93%) companies will fail that goal.
BPM and the wider Enterprise Architecture can and should be a part of the whole conversation (it is a redesign of their operating model and making decisions about the changes in the end) but I don’t see how a single BPM/EA group can be successful here. It takes the collaboration of a vendor with someone like Salesforce Net Zero Cloud (who do the emission capturing, calculation, and reporting) to have the proper first step of a technical solution.
What are the skills, techniques, behaviors, and attitudes that can help BPM practitioners create value for their organizations in 2025?
Data-driven analysis techniques will continue to become more popular, but I see some stagnation in innovation for the tools. It appears that Process and Task Mining have reached the status of “good enough” when I look at the tool features, and need to spread wider into more organizations … it is still a “young” topic. Overall, I see “data” still as a topic, though.
From an attitude aspect, I wish that we, as practitioners, don’t jump on the latest fad and then just think about that, but keep the focus on the basics and build the capabilities needed in our organizations that will help professionalize the discipline. Don’t fall into the trap of -artificially- building borders, as we see between “Business Architects” (driven by the BA Guild who do a good marketing game) and “Business Process” people — we are talking about the same thing here!
What are the best resources to learn those skills? (e.g. books, articles, courses)
I am biased because I just wrote a book about “Successful Architecture Implementation” that will be released in March 2025, and run the What’s Your Baseline? Podcast for 3.5 years for which we received good feedback for. So, I obviously recommend these resources (whatsyourbaseline.com).
Oh, and I am also writing on a second book “Successful Process Mining Projects” right now and expect this to come out in Q3/2025 🙂
What I wish for 2025 would be to have more podcasts to listen to, more opportunities to meet in real life and simply connect better with other practitioners. There are some things that I love to see, like the “BPM Stammtisch Hamburg” in Germany, but I don’t see anything in the area where I live (Washington, DC).
Which skills are no longer relevant or not practically applicable yet (hype)?
BPM is an “evergreen” capability, and I doubt that the skills will go away. And some of them will come back at some point in time — like Lean, for example. When I look at the changes that are triggered by the new administration here in the US, the government agencies will be forced to do less with more and become more efficient — I can see that these analysis methods will see a renaissance … combined with data-driven methods like Process Mining.