Articles

Managing a Process Innovation Portfolio

Author(s):

David Hamme

Managing Director, Ephesus Consulting

Process improvement efforts have historically aimed at improving the quality, increasing the throughput, reducing the cost, or improving the predictability of a major process. Today though a considerable number of process thought leaders are pushing process improvement theories and practices into new areas – most prominently strategic planning. Processes represent the unique way an enterprise creates value for consumers. It follows that by adjusting an enterprise’s processes, products can be adjusted to deliver enhanced value for a consumer. By leveraging this direct relationship, an enterprise can define its strategic intentions in terms of its plans to adjust processes. This approach forges a solid link between strategic intentions and the eventual outputs.

5 Questions to Ask Before Adopting Agile

Author(s):

Robert Woods

Director, National Agile Practice, MATRIX Resources

Tell me if this sounds familiar…

We have a mission critical project coming up and after putting together the requirements document we were told that the 2 years the project was going to take to complete is too long. But wait! I heard that Agile delivers projects in a much faster timeframe. All we have to do is change our process to something called Scrum; then we will get what we want in 6 months instead of 2 years!

Let’s do it!

Slow down…before we go invest stock in sticky notes, blue painters tape and index cards, there are a few questions we should consider to see if we are ready to embark on our Agile journey.

1) Do we have anyone internal to our organization now who has decent experience with Agile?

Taking Operational Excellence to the Next Level

Author(s):

Andrew Spanyi

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

Best in class companies understand that Operational Excellence (Op Ex) is the means to an end and not an end in itself. Yet, many organizations dedicated to Op Ex focus mostly on assuring that the core skills of Lean and Six Sigma are in place and that people understand work as a process. In some cases, companies choose to deploy Op Ex along departmental lines and fail to take full advantage of removing the non-value added steps residing in cross functional handoffs. While building the foundation for Op Ex is important, it’s not enough on its own. A company intent on taking Op Ex to the next level may wish to consider the following four tactics.

Real Business Architecture in Action© Part 4 of 4

Author(s):

Ralph Whittle

Enterprise Business Architect, Independent Consultant

This is the fourth and final article in a 4-part series of articles on architecture presented by the BAInstitiute. If the reader has not read the previous three articles in this series, the reader is encouraged to begin the series in its proper sequence.

The Business Architect Collaborator

Author(s):

Jeff Scott

President, Business Innovation Partners

Business architects don’t control large budgets nor do they command large groups of people. With little money and less authority, business architects’ success hinges on their ability to create value through others. In pursuit of that goal many business architects attempt to implement governance mechanisms with little success. One of the biggest lies analysts and other BA pundits tell us is that governance is a best practice. A best practice is something that works for a significant number of people in a wide variety of circumstances. Given that business architecture governance is something tried by a large number of people with little success, maybe we should call it a worst practice. Gaining senior level support in hopes they will direct others to follow our lead isn’t much better. Successful business architects recognize that collaboration is a key element in reaching their goals.

Business architects collaborate with a wide group of people:

3 Reasons Rules Architects Are Adopting Decision Modeling

Author(s):

James Taylor

Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and CEO and Principal Consultant, Decision Management Solutions

Rules Architects are increasingly using decision modeling as part of their business rules management system (BRMS) implementations. This article will explore three key benefits of using decision modeling and a BRMS.

Business Engagement
Expanded Traceability and Impact Analysis
Using agile not waterfall to write the rules

Collaborate Around Processes

Author(s):

Viveka Sinha

Consultant, Independent Consultant

Most of us see a business application (say an HR system) and email or any other collaborative application like Sharepoint as totally separate systems, although we use both to get our work done. One reason could be that the two applications are used at different times for different purposes- for example; a company might see email as essential but not invest in an HR application until they reach a certain size.

Using BPM to Meet Today’s Supply Chain Challenges

Author(s):

Tom Dwyer

Editorial Director and current Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org

In today’s demanding business environment that prioritizes flexibility, speed, quality, efficiency, effectiveness and innovation, a competitive supply chain strategy and its operational execution is critical. Business Process Management (BPM) helps an enterprise achieve these characteristics in its supply chain strategy – and in its execution of that strategy. Applying the BPM discipline achieves process improvements that lead to organizational performance improvements – such as a Supply Chain.

Supply Chain & Logistics Challenges

Real Business Architecture in Action© Part 3 of 4

Author(s):

Ralph Whittle

Enterprise Business Architect, Independent Consultant

This is the third article in a 4-part series of articles on architecture presented by the BAInstitiute. If the reader has not read the previous two articles in this series, the reader is encouraged to begin the series in its proper sequence. Read: Part 1 | Part 2

Business Architecture: A Noble Profession

Author(s):

Doug McDavid

Mr., DougMcDavid Enterprises

The Profession
Let’s take a little time to think together about this profession, this discipline, that we call business architecture. It’s not uncommon to find discussions about how to define this discipline, its responsibilities, and where it should report in an organization structure. Let’s take a slightly different perspective here on the nature of this work.

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