Articles

Business Architects and Product Managers

Business Architects and Product Managers

Author(s):

Director - Business Architecture, OptumHealth

Let me start with a provoking question: Business architects create capability roadmaps and product managers create product roadmaps. What is the difference and which is more valuable for my business? If product managers manage all the products of a company, is there a need for business architects and capability roadmaps?

Some of us, who are practicing business architects and familiar with “Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge™” (BIZBOK® Guide), may find this question offensive. However, this could be a reasonable question from any senior business leader (particularly unfamiliar with business architecture and product management disciplines).

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Governance is Not a Four Letter Word

Governance is Not a Four Letter Word

Author(s):

President, BPMPros LLC

At a recent client meeting, the Chief Architect arrived a few minutes late, clearly upset. When asked what was bothering him, he muttered “Governance is a four letter word”. I am sure that many readers have shared that sentiment at some time, but it needn’t be that way.

Organizations who have adopted BPM as their platform for IT development have an opportunity to both simplify and improve their IT Governance and Compliance processes. All of the advantages which BPM brings to your core business processes are just as applicable to IT Governance.

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Leading Organizational Redesign with Business Architecture

Leading Organizational Redesign with Business Architecture

Author(s):

Owner, Frank Fabian Group

Reorganization of a business is not easy. Following the usual process of organizational design, you work to identify the current organization, note the gaps and describe a process for getting to the new organization. That sounds easy enough in theory, but implementing the reorganization is not nearly as straight forward. Asking stakeholders what the problems are usually only gets you symptoms. Identifying gaps is difficult because if the organization knew there were gaps, they would have fixed them. Then you have those who abhor change who believe their area of the business works fine – it’s everyone else’s fault.

Getting Started

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Transitioning to a World of Decisions

Transitioning to a World of Decisions

Author(s):

Managing Director, Business Decision Management, Allegiance Advisory Group

As the concepts of decision modeling and management increasingly move from theory to practice, it has been interesting to note how it is perceived and approached by both business and IT. Perhaps not surprisingly, my experience has shown this to be a smoother transition for business. This is something we should expect as it presents a more natural representation of the business for the business. The IT side has certainly had a variety of tools available in numerous platforms to support this approach and the emergence of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) standard now brings a cohesive view across industries. However, it does seem to present a few challenges to IT in this early stage of evolution.

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Win the Game with Metrics

Win the Game with Metrics

Author(s):

Consultant, The Process Geek

I admit it; I waste hours a week playing video games. On my phone, laptop or tablet; on a train, bus or airplane; when I have time and when I don’t, I and millions like me find that the positive feedback from these games keeps us addicted. A silly banner pops up and says “Congratulations, you’re a winner!”, or tells you you’re still lagging behind the champion, and you just have to play again.

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Before Launching Government Transformation, Establish a Culture of Innovation

Before Launching Government Transformation, Establish a Culture of Innovation

Author(s):

Senior Principal, MITRE Corporation

“All employees must be directly involved, learning about innovation. And they must have direct experience with it. New governance gets managers more involved in the decision making…. Only when innovators operate with the credibility of leaders will innovation become a productive part of the everyday business.” Craig Wynett, a key driver of P&G’s pre-eminence in innovation

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Literate Process Modeling

Literate Process Modeling

Author(s):

President, BPMPros LLC

Thirty years ago, Donald Knuth introduced the notion of literate programming.   He wrote “Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.”   His premise was that over the lifetime of any successful program, far more hours would be spent reading it for purposes of maintenance and enhancement than were originally spent creating it.  Furthermore, most of this would be by people other than the original author.  If this is true, a little more effort in documentation by the original author will be paid back many times.  We believe these principles are even more important in Process Modeling than in traditional programming. 

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Leading Organizational Redesign with Business Architecture

Leading Organizational Redesign with Business Architecture

Author(s):

Owner, Frank Fabian Group

Reorganization of a business is not easy.  Following the usual process of organizational design, you work to identify the current organization, note the gaps and describe a process for getting to the new organization.  That sounds easy enough in theory, but implementing the reorganization is not nearly as straight forward.  Asking stakeholders what the problems are usually only gets you symptoms.  Identifying gaps is difficult because if the organization knew there were gaps, they would have fixed them.  Then you have those who abhor change who believe their area of the business works fine – it’s everyone else’s fault.

Getting Started

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Metrics and Business Process

Metrics and Business Process

Author(s):

President and CEO, FMT Systems Inc.

I learned the importance of metrics and predictive analysis from an unlikely source in an odd place — the McDonald’s near my college — yes, the place with the golden arches! When I started working there, I didn’t know about Ray Kroc or his revolutionary idea about portion control. I simply wanted to earn money to cover my car and insurance payments.

Everything was measured at this store, from how long the fries were blanched to how long burgers were grilled to the amount time food was allowed to wait in the warming area. In addition to the process measurements, the store’s managers and assistant managers were responsible for recording the day, the date, the weather, special events within a ten mile radius, hourly sales from each register, hourly numbers for each item sold, and amount of items sent to waste each hour.

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Field Notes: Decision Analysis and Process Analysis

Field Notes: Decision Analysis and Process Analysis

Author(s):

VP Consulting & Principal Consultant, Decisions Management Solutions

Business Decisions and Business Processes need to be analyzed and improved simultaneously for better business outcomes. Following are some practical notes from the field on the correct perspective for this.

1. Decisions are a network or a hierarchy, not a flow

Decision Analysis does not need a flow-based sequential thinking like Process Analysis. Unlike processes, decisions are evaluated in a network where a number of lower-level decisions are made to aggregate up to the main business decision of interest. This state-less decision can be plugged into a process with the process then flowing on down the time dimension.Fig 1

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