Articles

Capability Maps: Value of Financial Perspective

Author(s):

Ganesh Balasubramaniam

Director - Business Architecture, OptumHealth

In this modern era of business, business architecture as a discrete discipline of business management, has gained substantial traction. Business architecture approaches and methods are evolving and maturing rapidly. Capability maps, which establish a comprehensive view of “what” a business does from a consistent, non-redundant and well-defined perspective, are now a part of the foundational aspects of business architecture. Established business enterprises realize that capability maps are critical for strategic planning and business transformation. During a capability mapping exercise, business architects sometimes don’t give due importance to the significant financial aspects or considerations of an operational business model. Business architecture and capability models are not immune to financial constraints, nor should they be handcuffed by them.

Developing and Mastering BPM Skills

Author(s):

Tom Dwyer

Editorial Director and current Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org

In December 2011, the BPMInstitute participated in a Forrester research report entitled “The Forrester Wave: BPM Training And Certification Programs, Q2 2012” (May 2012) of the training and certification programs offered in business process management. BPMInstitute.org has made the report available to our readers, for a limited time. This article provides additional comments on the topics presented in the Forrester report. The report’s research findings agree with our own research into our student’s objectives for taking BPM training.

The Strange Case of the People vs. Business Decision Management

Author(s):

Brian Stucky

Managing Director, Business Decision Management, Allegiance Advisory Group

Essays I have authored in the past generally focused on various methodologies and technologies revolving around business decision management – business process, business rules and analytics. I’ve always been quite interested in the past, present and likely future of these capabilities and their application in various real world domains.

For the last several years I have been wholly involved with applied decision management in the financial services arena. While there has been an almost unfathomable amount of turmoil in these businesses over the past several years, I was still very surprised to recently hear a loud cry from the mortgage industry that “technology got us into the trouble that we are in today!”

Business Architecture Drives Project Portfolio Prioritization

Author(s):

Drew Guitarte

Enterprise Business Architect, Wells Fargo & Company

Business architecture helps portfolio managers prioritize IT-based projects by mapping projects to a business capability model. A capability model can aggregate what’s important, urgent, and doable in an organization which can then be used to prioritize projects. Project portfolio managers may use several approaches to portfolio analysis (see Schuurman & Powell, 2008) but a capability-based portfolio analysis adds additional rigor and discipline to prioritization.

An Integrated Approach to Improving Business Process Quality through Risk Modeling – Part 2

Author(s):

Ed Hollingsworth

Sr. Architect, INTEGRITYOne Partners, Inc.

This two-part series explores methods of actively evaluating risk as part of business processes, and incorporating elements of risk deterrence into business process models. In Part 1, we explored the context and precedents for our research. As we learned, achieving a stronger integration between risk analysis and process modeling promises to improve the quality of the modeled processes and increase the percentage of positive business outcomes those processes achieve. In this final part of the series, we will describe an innovative approach to incorporating risk management directly into business process models using the standard Business Process Model & Notation (BPMN), version 2.0.

Risk Assessments 1-2-3

Author(s):

Karen Tricomi

Consultant, The Process Geek

Risk assessments have become more common recently, and for good reason. We read headlines daily about data breaches, high-dollar investments gone wrong, and companies that took a market risk that didn’t pay off.

Risk increases as a result of change, whether internally or externally triggered. Examples of internally driven change include executing a new project, launching a new product, or changing a process. Regulatory requirements, market changes, competitive challenges, and new security threats change the risk profile even when a company is conducting business as usual. Enterprises are never done with assessing risks; there is no such thing as “steady state” when it comes to risks.

Paying Down the Architectural Debt with the Business Architecture

Author(s):

Ralph Whittle

Enterprise Business Architect, Independent Consultant

Some enterprises are considering or have already taken bold initiatives to better manage their architectural debt. Architectural debt is a colorful metaphor for describing when a product, process, application, or system evolves well past the capability covered by the original architectural design.[1]

Which BPM Methodology is Best for Us?

Author(s):

Shelley Sweet

Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and President, i4 Process

There are lots of BPM Methodologies. In fact I teach a class called BPM Methodologies 2-3 times a year for BPMInstitute.org. The next one is in San Francisco, June 25. But which BPM Methodology should you organization use?

First, let’s define a BPM Methodology.

An approach with principles and specific procedures that provides guidelines for how to approach different scenarios within the Business Process Management discipline.

Most BPM Methodologies have conceptual principles, a graphic model, and specific techniques for the elements within the model.

Some of best known BPM methodologies today are Six Sigma, Lean, BP Trends, Hammer and Rummler–Brache. Below is one of these graphical models for the Toyota Production System (Lean).

The World of Agile IT and Stakeholder Management

Author(s):

Sameer Paradkar

Enterprise Architect, AtoS

Agile Methodology

Why on earth would this BOK be into existence when there are loads and loads of documentation available on company archives that we can refer to during crunch times. So Am I reinventing the wheel ? No way. The below bulleted matrix would help you keep afloat in case you hit the agile monster or have butterflies in your stomach about Agile based projects and its future. So is Agile Immortal ? Humm ……….let me think. Well Almost for the current era. Agile is a way for product companies to substance their lively hood by ensuring they power pack their software products by business driven factors which we know as requirements, enhancements, UI features, and bug fixes. Agile is a way to build software using the small optimized revisions that resembles the iterative and incremental approach. This resembles as a scaled down approach of the predecessors. The key element to Agile is it ensures that the risks elements are at bay.

The “M” is Missing in BPM

Author(s):

Andrew Spanyi

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

Business Process Management (BPM) has made a significant contribution to improving the performance of some business processes, yet the “management” part of BPM has not lived up to its full potential. Way back in 2003, I defined BPM as the disciplined definition, improvement and management of a company’s end-to-end business processes. The key aspects of this definition relate to “end-to-end” processes and the “troika” or “triumvirate” (e.g. not just one – but all three) of definition, improvement and management. In this broader context, the M is frequently missing from BPM.

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Agile Methodology

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