Business process management (BPM) has traditionally been associated with hard-core process automation, and has also often involved the use of similarly hard-core techniques like Lean Six Sigma.

Such approaches may be considered overkill or simply not practical for dealing with the myriad of ad hoc, informal, and constantly changing workflows that exist across most businesses, but are there lessons that can be learned from traditional BPM projects that have broader applicability?

The answer is yes, but the trick is not to get too bogged down in detail and formality. A lot can be achieved by understanding some of the basic principles and applying them in a more general manner.

Watch this on-demand webcast, recorded at our central London studios where The Register's own Tim Phillips is joined by a couple of experts to talk through the practicalities of this.

On the couch with Tim is Garry Gomersall from IBM who thinks that many more of us can improve productivity in unexpected ways. He's joined by Freeform's Dale Vile to show how BPM has an application beyond highly structured process automation.

Apart from reviewing principles and approaches, the three of them discuss a number of technology enabled business optimisation ideas that started in one industry but are becoming more broadly relevant.

So, tune in now and it might save you weeks or months of analysis, prevent all that nail biting trial and error, or, even better, become a hero by helping your business stakeholders get ahead of the pack in their sector.