Like any industry, there are educational materials, books, training and certification courses all over the place, mostly unregulated. I won’t go into the pitfalls, I’ve written about it too many times anyway here on BPMredux.
But, I want to follow on from suggestions and attempts over the last couple of years and hypothesize again.
What if vendors who promote specific tool training and education courses all adopted one methodology standard as part of their introduction to the discipline ?
If you look at some of the offerings, IBM/ Lombardi, Pega, Appian, Ultimus, they all offer BPM training in a variety of flavours, mostly centred around their own tool. Fine. But obviously part of this learning experience people need to understand the discipline itself, the basics, the various tools as a methodology that are available. A vendor may not be best placed to do this, but…..if they all adopted one standard and recognised course as the precursor to their own tool certification programme wouldn’t this help drive adoption and standardisation of sorts ?
ABPMP, OMG, BPM Institute to name a few…take your pick (carefully) Align with one, help promote it as a standard and drive for formal adoption. If you think of the number of seats/ licences sold by vendors alone this is a huge base on which to finally campaign for method adoption.
Bear in mind, I’m not saying you can’t have choice, I’m saying that in terms of skill and recognition on an industry wide basis a practitioner will know they haven’t wasted their money on a course that no-one recognises, this is as much about an individual’s need and right as it is the business of BPM. They don’t have to take the tool specific training either, but knowing that one day if they do their previous certification will count towards it, much like any University credit system.
Be careful if you intend to align with a particular course.
For example, if you take a look at the BPM Council, I have no clue who they are (yet they appear in the Gartner Hype report). Website looks very ropey, there’s less than 12 people on LinkedIn found with specific mention of them. Due diligence for any BPM certification course is a must (as well as when compiling any research) and will increase your own reputation as well as the discipline at large.
So is this really such a bad idea ?
I’m calling out the vendors and the educators. Put your money where your mouth is and tell me why I’m wrong because the industry is listening.
And if I’m right, who’s going to take up the mantle ?
