Many organizations are seeing revenue and profits slip through their fingers because of the operational gaps between departments. As customers, partners, employees or suppliers move through your business operations, new "socially aware" tools can prevent them from getting trapped in complex processes, or finding themselves on the receiving end of inadequate customer service. Otherwise, a lack of synchronization of business operations can negate many of the key benefits derived from applying Business Process Management, Business Rules Management, Event Processing or other solutions that promise operational efficiency and effectiveness.
BPM is more important today than ever before. Only the most agile enterprise stands a chance in today's constantly-changing business environment. Many are struggling, even more are falling behind. Janelle Hill shares Gartner’s perspective on the top BPM trends and opportunities for 2013.
Janelle will also share's the results of a Gartner survey in which chief-level executives identified the approaches they are using to achieve their business objectives.
Learn how leading BPM teams are:
A lot has been written about Big Data in the last few months. Most companies are trying to make sense of the large amount of data they have to serve as an input to both strategic and operational decisions. In this article, I’ll discuss a couple of reasons for the obvious link between BPM and Big Data and how they can co-exist with BPM implementations helping drive adoption of Big Data.
Most BPM platforms have built-in capabilities to collect process parameters and key process related data during process execution. Most also provide some form of rudimentary to sophisticated analysis of the data, perhaps not run time, (yet), but on a post facto basis.
Process owners use this data to gain insight into the process, for example:
Should we use flow charts, swim lanes, value stream mapping, proprietary software notation, or BPMN? Yes, there a number of notations you could use, and you want to pick the right one for your organization.
The first question to ask is what is the purpose of the process diagramming notation? Since there are several purposes for process diagramming at different stages of a BPM/ process improvement project, you may switch to one type of notation or another at different times.
Purpose 1: A high level map to scope the project and as part of the charter. Here I suggest using a simple flow chart with 6-10 steps using rectangle for activities/steps, diamond shaped decision diamonds and directional arrows. You could actually create it in PowerPoint, but I usually do it in Visio. The purpose of this map is to get people understanding what a process looks like.
A high level process map is:
Successes and Achievements
Over the past several years, many corporations have successfully completed numerous strategic Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives. Looking to build and expand upon these successes, many practitioners realized that connecting and integrating the individual models from strategic BPM initiatives could identify additional performance improvement opportunities and synergies between the previously modeled core cross-functional business processes.
Bearing in mind that activities integrate individual tasks, processes integrate activities, strategic BPM initiatives integrate processes, and then continuing with this rationale, one realizes the Business Architecture (BA) integrates all core cross-functional business processes from the strategic BPM initiatives.
About the Report
As more and more organizations embrace Business Process Management (BPM) for the design of enterprise organizational and information systems, the demand for BPM training increases.
Many companies claim they’re the best at BPM training. Who should you believe?
Believe what industry expert Forrester Research is saying in the 2012 Forrester Wave report BPM Training and Certification Programs. It evaluates top BPM training and certification providers, citing BPMInstitute.org as a leader in the BPM training market - and a top scorer in 7 of the 15 BPM skills development categories.
Download your copy of the Forrester Wave report BPM Training and Certification Programs and get their objective review of the top organizations in the BPM training space.
This paper provides the reader with a 7 Step model that seeks to suggest ways in which organisations can maximise their business returns. The model sets out to blend the benefits of non-technology approaches with the more technological ones.
For a number of years, systems modernization been has providing benefits to organizations seeking to analyze software architectures in support of tactical systems initiatives such as software maintenance. Modernization has also delivered benefits for project teams seeking to migrate from obsolete or aging languages and platforms to more modern environments. While success stories abound for tactical modernization projects, they merely represent the "low hanging fruit" of what modernization can achieve. Modernization efforts are now reaching into more significant and far reaching domains, extending opportunities into the upper echelons of IT and business architectures. Achieving this goal requires a deeper understanding of the architectural impacts of systems modernization.
This article covers an issue within Business Process Management (BPM) redesign which is often not fully discussed. Frequently, development groups are eager to get the team fully engaged as quickly as possible. Looking at “as is” situations (examining, modeling) may receive slight attention as being “bygones” – “Let’s start with a clean slate.” The issue is deciding how quickly to begin computerized development after a project or analysis has been scheduled.
There are different aspects of business growth and development. One faction may wish to apply technology to change its business as quickly as possible, while another may prefer to proceed cautiously and methodically, moving only after research and through using a well-tested methodology. Which is correct? The classic answer is “It depends.”
Except for natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, or hurricanes, all risks are man-made. This article is a synthesis of three past Harvard Business Review articles. The bibliography is at the end of the piece. Project Managers (PMs) usually have very little control of the risk circumstances in which they are placed. Taken together, viewing risk from the combined perspectives of the authors cited should help PMs assess risk in their own environments. Summarizing the titles as follows: “Right Risks,” “Is it Real?” and “Hidden Traps” will help us consider the contribution of each, and then meld them into the PM’s decision process.
The Right Risks
