Resources in Business Process Management (BPM)

With the (almost) official release of DMN1.1 we find ourselves at an interesting crossroads in the industry as the concept of consistently modeling decisions becomes more widespread. It seems clear that we’ve moved from questions of “What is this?” to “How can we effectively leverage it?”. A plethora of companies have developed platforms to support DMN or at least support it through some kind of adapter.  Gartner has commented on it and MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards and Maintenance Organization) is moving towards adopting it as an official standard for exchange and interchange in the mortgage industry.

This crossroads also includes fundamental questions surrounding what we can do, what we can’t do, and what we should be doing with the standard. I’ve seen this manifest itself in two primary ways:

1. Modeling vs. Implementation
2. Methods to implement, share, disseminate and execute decision logic

These will both be discussed here.

Operational Excellence focuses on providing the best execution of service and process for the benefit of the customer and the organization. It is not a proprietary program or methodology; rather, the term usually represents a conglomeration of process methods and techniques to improve operational discipline, its performance metrics, and customer satisfaction.

Operational Excellence is an enterprise approach. Companies want to address more end-to-end processes, going beyond earlier smaller process improvement projects in one department. For end-to- end processes to be successful organizations need to have consistent execution aligned with organizational purpose, leadership accountability that spans organizational boundaries, and employee skills and behaviors that see the flow of work across the organization and make results happen for the customer.

The Process Bulldog is a lynchpin role at the heart of a healthy process culture. This role is the connection layer of your process governance structure - linking the vision of the leadership team with the creativity of the process owners and participants, the people who are involved in process challenges every day. Every organization needs one.

We previously called this role the Lead Process Champion, but at our Promapp User Summits this year the term ‘Process Bulldog’ was used to describe the attributes needed to succeed as a process champion - and everyone loved it.

"Our guidance takes major steps in ensuring CIOs have a seat at the table for technology-related budget, procurement, and workforce matters. [It] is centered on a ‘common baseline’ that outlines the roles and responsibilities for agency chief information officers and other senior agency officials. More importantly, it establishes a groundwork for productive partnerships among these leaders to make IT decisions that better support [their business] mission." – U.S. Chief Information Officer (CIO) Tony Scott (upon releasing the final Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Passed by Congress in December 2014, the Federal Information Technology Reform Act (FITARA) grants more influence and control over investments in information technology (IT) to agency’s CIOs.