Business Process Management (BPM) is defined as a strategy for managing and improving the performance of a business through continuous optimization of business processes in a closed-loop cycle of modeling, execution, and measurement. BPM encompasses the discovery, design, and deployment of business processes; in addition, BPM includes the executive, administrative, and supervisory control of those processes.
A business process can be described as a sequence or flow of activities in an organization with the objective of carrying out work. The flow of a process is controlled by decisions, triggers, events, and exceptions, any of which may be influenced by rules or policies. A process has performance indicators which may be compared to actual performance during execution. The activities in a process are performed by system or human actors (or groups conforming to a role) which may be internal to an organization or external (business partners).
An Enterprise Architect's Musings 