Articles

Business Process Management: Why Do You Model?

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

The first question most executives ask when I explain how we organize an improvement project is along the lines of “can we skip the process modeling?” They either believe all the processes have already been modeled or they know their employees are saturated from all the modeling or other consulting efforts. The reality is that I rarely find off the shelf materials (process and metrics models) that I can use without significant rework. In this article I want to make a case to model less, not more. Let’s start with why you model.

Modeling for the purpose of modeling.

Composite Process Solutions vs. Application Suites

Author(s):

Janelle Hill

VP & Distinguished Analyst, BPM Research, Gartner Inc.

For years, the pendulum has swung in favor of buying rather than building applications. However, business and technology triggers have shifted executives' focus from functional efficiency to business process adaptability. As the major suite vendors retool and refactor...

BPM Features Important to a Process Owner

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Are you a Process Manager/Operations Manager? Are you looking for BPM software that lets you depict your process visually and also allows you to modify the process in real time without any coding effort? To take full control and ownership of your business process look for this list of features from your BPM software.

Process Modeler

SOA Needs BPM

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

The increasing success and ease of global competition places unprecedented pressures on enterprise revenues and profitability. The result is that enterprises are trying to do multiple things at once. Business units are told to be flexible and deliver new services quickly but at the same time to lower operational costs. Enterprises have mandates to continuously change and improve their processes, yet are also need to reuse existing business automation.

Mining Rules From Code: Plan It Well

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

In a past BR Bulletin, the article “Business Rule Mining: Reasonable or Lunacy” presented how to determine if business rule mining would help your project. Each organization is faced with numerous legacy applications that have become “black boxes.” Business rule mining is a systematic approach of extracting essential intellectual business content (business rules) from packaged or legacy software, recasting them in natural language, and storing them in a source rule repository for further analysis or forward engineering.

Five Principles For BPMS Methodologies

Author(s):

Dr. Setrag Khoshafian

Principal and Chief Scientist, Khosh Consulting

These are exciting times. Business Process Management Suites (BPMSs) are becoming increasingly mature, and we are witnessing the emergence of the BPMS Center of Excellence (CE) in a number of large Fortune 1000 organizations. These are also challenging times. We are bombarded with confusing messages when it comes to the methodologies, tools, and overall culture that need to be developed within an organization to realize the full potential of the BPMS CE.

The Future of BPM

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Business Process Management offers the ability to improve business processes significantly..

The same technology that supports BPM also can be used to implement composite applications and service-oriented architecture. Vollmer explores these additional capabilities and shows how they are changing the business landscape.

BPEL4People Revisited

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

The world of BPMS is divided into BPEL-lovers and BPEL-haters, and the thing that BPEL-haters seem to hate most is that even the not-yet-final 2.0 version of the OASIS standard “excludes” human tasks. How can you have a “business process” execution language that cannot accommodate human-performed activities? “Out of scope”?! Are you kidding?

Of course, if you’re a BPEL vendor interested in selling to the BPM market, you have to integrate human tasks somehow, and they all do already. It’s just that they all do it slightly differently.

The world of BPMS is divided into BPEL-lovers and BPEL-haters, and the thing that BPEL-haters seem to hate most is that even the not-yet-final 2.0 version of the OASIS standard “excludes” human tasks. How can you have a “business process” execution language that cannot accommodate human-performed activities? “Out of scope”?! Are you kidding?

Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Initiatives

Author(s):

Ralph Whittle

Enterprise Business Architect, Independent Consultant

Most companies today have a strategic initiative focused on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) development. Some of these efforts struggled in the early days, but many now have clear goals and measurable objectives. Many of these same companies also have an Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) initiative as well, or at least some type of Business Process Modeling or Business Process Management initiative. Here again, initially it was a struggle, too.

Successful Process Improvement Requires the Right Mindset

Author(s):

Andrew Spanyi

Faculty Member, DBizInstitute.org and Managing Director, Spanyi International

To best take advantage of the power of BPM technology, enterprises first need to achieve a certain aptitude and the right attitude for understanding and improving the firm's large business processes. BPM is not a trendy technical fix for problems. It is a discipline...