Articles

Future-Proofing: 3 Methods for Creating Business Value

Author(s):

Simona Lovin

Director of Operations and Strategic Initiatives, Leidos

In a previous article, Using Business Architecture to Design Future Industries, I made the case that Business Architects have an important role to play in identifying future-oriented business opportunities in emerging business sectors such as the $350B space industry. The example provided was that of a key business process – the space supply chain management process – which is already being defined and modeled by several organizations. While the space industry and its key sector – space transportation – are still in their infancy, industry players with the foresight to map out the long-term business and IT architecture for the space transportation infrastructure will have first-entrant advantage into what is expected to be a highly lucrative field.

Where to Start with Process Improvement in a New Organization

Author(s):

David Hamme

Managing Director, Ephesus Consulting

Most of us have found ourselves in the situation where we are assigned to oversee a function or department new to us. Without knowing what we’ve inherited, the honeymoon period kicks off – those critical ninety or so days where we have to demonstrate that the hiring manager made the right decision. During this time, we meet with our direct reports, talk with customers, watch how things are getting done, and diligently investigate areas identified by our boss. But true progress is somewhat elusive – we just don’t really know where to dig in. Not knowing where to focus their energy, many new managers hammer down on the administrative side of the job. Unfortunately, they quickly lose the ability to see with fresh eyes the reality of the situation. They get sucked into the void of the status quo.

5S-Work Flow Management in Enterprise Excellence Deployment

Author(s):

Rick Hepp

Trainer, Coach & Mentoir for Enterprise Excellence, Consultant and Trainer

As Part of a Business Transformation and Enterprise Excellence strategy, how can the methodologies & tools of Operational Excellence be integrated into Business Strategy?

The Role of Operations in Strategy

Author(s):

Andrew Campbell

Mr, Ashridge Executive Education

I recently enjoyed an article by Kevin Laczkowski and colleagues at McKinsey titled: Seeing your way to better strategy. It argued for four lenses to help you “see your way” forward – Financial, Market, Competitor and Operating Model. The thought behind these lenses is that, by doing some focused thinking around each lens, you will develop better strategy.

Robotic Process Automation within your Organization

Author(s):

Frank Teti

Digital Advisor / Manager, Capgemini Invent

Whether you are into BPM on a full-time basis or a general technologist, it is hard to not be seriously considering RPA or RDA (Robotic Desktop Automation) in the mix of any business solution you are working on lately. For Pegasystems specialist, you may have been introduced to RPA by their fairly recent acquisition of OpenSpan (now Pega Robotics). Pegasystems is rapidly assimilating the RPA into their BPM platform (PRPC 7.4). Although, integration with BPM is a good feature, in the industry RPA is platform agnostic and considered a platform in and of itself.

I have seen some organizations establish entire reporting units dedicated to RPA, even with a well-established BPM practice already in place. In discussions with technology leads, some seem to have a hard time enunciating how RPA fits into the overall architecture, this will be mitigated once there are enough RPA implementations and associated case studies disseminated.

Stop Trying to Be Agile: Agile is a process, not a goal

Author(s):

Jamie Cooke

Managing Director, Both Hemispheres, LLC

Agile has become an industry buzzword, a marketing term that organizations use to try to show that they are responsive to their clients and adaptive to industry changes. In fact, the perception of being an Agile organization has such strong market value that claiming to be Agile often becomes the objective unto itself. If the goal of your organization is to say that you are Agile, then you may be missing the point.

Trying to be an Agile organization is like trying to be a happy person. You do not achieve Agility (or happiness) by making it your primary objective; you achieve it by making constructive changes and taking positive actions that get you there.

The Experience-Driven Business Architect: Lessons from the Field

Author(s):

Dean Heltemes

Senior Director, Ameriprise Financial

Some design is just bad. Doors that you can’t tell if they push or pull to open, microwave oven buttons, the Ford Pinto, the list goes on and on. Bad design is easy to spot and often easy to fix, but some design is really good and still fails…why??? Many companies have learned that that having the best products isn’t enough; today it is all about the end-to-end experience. Delivering exceptional experiences should become the mantra of business architects everywhere and the best way to do this is to partner with a group already skilled at doing this: User Experience (UX) designers. In this installment of Lessons from the Field, I would like to demonstrate how business architects, working closely with UX designers, can help deliver exceptional experiences.

Exceptional Experiences

So, what makes an experience exceptional? This of course varies from person to person, but here are some common examples:

Accelerate Digital Transformation with Process Management

Author(s):

Andrew Spanyi

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

EDITORS NOTE: DBizInstitute.org is conducting a Digital Business Adoption survey. Please take a few moments to answer the survey and contribute to this important research.

Approaching Microservices with Decisions and Standards

Author(s):

Brian Stucky

Managing Director, Business Decision Management, Allegiance Advisory Group

The mortgage industry – like most others looking to FinTech – have been exploring a variety of emerging technologies. All the usual suspects are included: artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation, blockchain, etc. Surprisingly, the exploration of APIs and microservices has been at the top of the list for many. Coming from a technical background I was somewhat surprised to hear these brought up. However, it became increasingly clear how important this concept truly is to the industry.

Comparing Agile with Cross-Functional Project Teams

Author(s):

Andrew Campbell

Mr, Ashridge Executive Education

For some time now, since a conference I ran in July on Agile and New Forms of Organization, I have been trying to get clear in my mind what the difference is between an “agile team” and a “cross-functional team”. Also, I recently participated in a cross-functional team looking at ways to improve the performance of corporate functions.

Cross-functional teams have been a feature of organisation since the 1960s, when Boeing first developed a new aeroplane using a multi-functional approach. This successful experience was documented by Jay Galbraith, who called it a “matrix structure”. It was the first documented use of matrix organisation ideas: in Boeing’s case a function/project matrix. At various points in time since then, cross-functional teams have been much written about and much used.

So what is new/different about Agile compared to cross-functional teams? Here is my list