Bonitasoft has put out a good whitepaper for getting started with BPM. In it they talk about 10 best practices. They do point out that the goal of managing your business processes is to optimize efficiency and improve profitability.
I have addressed many of these in the past, but some of these are worth revisiting. I will reorder them to fit my experiences.
Involve all Stakeholders
It is important to involve the user community in your BPM project for several reasons.
They are the ones that know how the process works. You need their input to make sure you map the process correctly.
If they are involved [have input to the project], they will take some ownership in the success of the project.
In a project like this, one person can destroy the project. It only takes one bad attitude. If your user community has input to the project, if they feel some ownership, they will be more likely to help the project be successful.
My Recommendation: You can have a really good vision for a solution, but when you add people to the mix anything can happen. Assemble a team of users that will help you be successful.
Again, success in your first project will get you the support you need to move to the next project.
Next week: Measure