Articles

Author(s):

About 15 years ago I came across ‘The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook’ by Jay Conrad Levinson. The concept was to create branding and lead generation through unconventional and small scale activities and events that could have as much impact as a large seven figure advertising campaign. Unfortunately, a lot of people took this as an excuse to commission irritating and humourless “viral” internet campaigns churned out by clueless marketing agencies. However, the concept of getting maximum results from minimum resources has stuck with me.

The Business Process Management DNA, a need for the “big picture”

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

A DNA carries the biological instructions that define, compose and create unique species. Molecules come together in a unique combination to form a “code” that defines a cell’s characteristics in an organism, and shape what the cell in intended to do. This article is not about genetic engineering, nor is it about medicine. However, it is about trying to lay out the DNA roadmap for what Business Process Management (BPM) should encompass in an organization.

Management Strategies for SOA

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Management Strategies for SOA

The SOA consortium has been running an annual contest for the best SOA Case Studies. Last year I attended the event and summarized the common characteristics of successful SOA implementations. This year’s winners shared the same characteristics:

1. Strong executive level commitment2. Educate the business of the value of SOA3. Establish a Center of Excellence4. Well defined business services5. Completeness of services6. Sound quality assurance7. ROI realized over time

Business Semantics – Information Alignment

Author(s):

Jim Rhyne

Principal Consultant, Software Renovation Consulting

Technology has produced many wonderful and useful things and has changed the way we work and play. It has also produced a good many solutions for problems that nobody thinks are important. Or, the technology based solution to the problem has a greater cost than the value that would be realized from the solution.

Target State Business Architecture an ideal model for forming an Outsourcing Agreement

Author(s):

Bernard Morris

Business Enterprise Architect, VicRoads

Outsourcing

The term outsourcing is developing a whole new concept with the recognition that through scale opportunity service providers can not only provide more efficient processing but can also deliver high value adding based services directly to the customer.

However, the outsourcing of high value business processes can be quite complex and requires serious preparation before a decision can takes place to release responsibility to a third party.

The key questions facing the organisation are:

Building Strong Management Support for Your Change Management Program

Author(s):

Deborah Turturici

President - Sr. Business Enterprise Architect, Ability-Alliance Group, LLC.

Your kickoff meeting is scheduled and you have carefully put together your change management communication strategy and plan. You have spoken to the CEO and he is happy to speak at the kickoff and has given you his commitment to provide ongoing support. You have been diligent, meeting with him several times to go over the key points that you would like included in his messages. You have even begun to have informal discussions on the CM strategy and plan with key impacted stakeholders, and are gaining their support. This all sounds great doesn’t it? So why are you, getting resistance from your mid-level managers every time you speak with them?

BPM Center of Excellence

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

In my last article, I talked about selecting a BPM tool while keeping in mind both the short and long term needs of an organization’s process needs. But as we are all aware, whether we acknowledge it or not, tactical views and immediate implementation needs take priority over strategic needs. People tend to overlook long term process needs while focusing on only the immediate process automation needs. Moreover, while focusing on tactical needs, organizations tend to overlook areas such as process ownership and governance, roles and responsibilities, Service levels, and standards that should be associated with any process initiatives. More importantly these need to be thought through prior to embarking on the BPM journey. A BPM Center of Excellence (COE) can help with all of these areas.

Geo Transform: Geo Visualize the ROI on your SOA Infrastructure

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

A SOA implementation roadmap can be long and the SOA infrastructure, like “plumbing”, can be hidden from the end user during construction. During our SOA implementation, we used an “Early SOA” approach, where we connected a “faucet” to the SOA infrastructure and helped users “tap into” the value of the SOA infrastructure being built. Most Enterprises have Data and Processes with location attributes. We leveraged the SOA Infrastructure to transform Enterprise Data and Processes into an Open Geo Visualization Standard like KML[1] or GML[2].

Are You Set Up To Manage Process Change?

Author(s):

Neil Ward-Dutton

Research Director, MWD Advisors

When the idea of BPM as we understand it today first began to gain currency (when Smith and Fingar published their book “Business Process Management: The Third Wave” in 2003), the distinction that was clearly made between BPM and its predecessor, Business Process Reengineering, was that BPM explicitly recognises that business processes change over time, and seeks to help organisations enable and drive continuous change through the lifecycles of processes.

The Process Professional: An Independent Review of Ascentn’s AgilePoint

Author(s):

Karen Tricomi

Consultant, The Process Geek

In a continuing series evaluating the tools used by Business Process practioners, this article looks at Ascentn’s AgilePoint. Criteria for evaluation are ease of use, a short learning curve, and good collaboration features.

AgilePoint is a full-featured BPM suite. Ascentn distinguishes their market as one of “people and culture, not technology.” After looking into their products, I understand this to mean their focus is on the process practitioner.