Look for project management and vendor selection skills when considering consulting firms for this phase. In evaluating a firm's vendor selection skills, be mindful that many consultants provide services in conjunction with specific software vendors; hence, consultants' vendor relationships should be an important consideration for organizations seeking objective advice.

Project implementation and rollout. As with ERP installations, a successful BPM deployment relies heavily on its final step: the implementation and rollout. This phase can be the most challenging, and it needs to be managed with a well-planned, measured, and integrated approach.

Since a BPM initiative comprises both system and process changes, a successful implementation requires a complex blend of skills, ranging from technology integration to organizational transformation. Clearly, implementing new business processes along with new technology adds complexity to the initiative, and process issues should be given as much consideration as technology concerns -- if not more -- throughout this exercise.

Project management in a BPM implementation is really engagement management -- pulling together IT and the technical requirements, the business end users and their functional requirements, the vendor and its product expertise, and additional third-party experts while overseeing everyone's priorities, deliverables, and schedules. At the same time, companies need to be sure not to shortchange end-user education and system rollout. The sooner key personnel are using the system to its fullest, the more quickly the organization will realize the project's benefits. Initial and ongoing training needs, as well as system oversight and service (e.g., help desk), should be planned before the software is rolled out to users.

The complexity of BPM projects is one reason why organizations should engage consultants for the implementation and integration. Internal IT resources may have successfully managed internal development projects, but implementing a business-focused, packaged application suite requires a different skill set. Another reason is that BPM systems touch many users across the enterprise; there are many audiences to please and many potential critics if something goes wrong.

The ideal way to approach this phase of a BPM project is with a team consisting of internal finance and IT staff and external consultants. If the project is driven in part by senior management, their oversight of the implementation is also critical. The skill sets that are most useful in consultants for this phase of the project include application architecture and design, education, implementation experience with the selected product, and -- most important -- project management.