Articles

Author(s):

Brian Stucky

Managing Director, Business Decision Management, Allegiance Advisory Group

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:

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

These will both be discussed here.

Designing an Effective Business Architecture Team

Author(s):

Whynde Kuehn

Principal, S2E Consulting Inc.

As organizations set out to establish their own internal business architecture practices, some of the most frequently asked questions are about how to structure the business architecture team and role. These are indeed important considerations because the structure significantly contributes to both the effectiveness and success of a business architecture practice. How the team is structured and positioned, and how the business architect role is defined directly and indirectly speak volumes about strategic importance, scope of responsibility and key relationships. Certain choices made up front will make it easier to obtain organizational buy-in and perform the role at a strategic level.

Key Structural Decisions
While there are certainly other considerations, a few key decisions need to be made once an organization has decided to formalize a business architecture practice.

The Systems Approach to Performance Improvement: A Personal Experience

Author(s):

Alan Ramias

Partner, Performance Design Lab

In the late 1970’s, I was a training manager in charge of teller training at a bank in the Midwest. I read Geary Rummler’s article “You Need Performance, Not Just Training” and experienced a Eureka! moment because I had just witnessed the exact scenario described in the article: an inept attempt at engineering the desired performance of tellers. This is the story of what happened before and after I applied Rummler’s principles of systematic performance improvement.

Dealing with Cultural Challenges in Operational Excellence

Author(s):

Shelley Sweet

Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and President, i4 Process

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.

Real Business Architecture in Action© Part 1 of 4

The Process Bulldog

Author(s):

Ivan Seselj

CEO, Promapp

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.