(This article assumes knowledge of The Decision Model.
The Decision Model Column – “MIT Industry Symposium on Information Quality, The Decision Model, and an IQ Framework”
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OD or BPM: Pick Only One?
Organizational life is not a natural act. We humans are well suited for the mostly faceto- face interaction of the medium-sized tribe; everything beyond that is a push. It is not surprising that we often find that our organizations do not function as neatly as we might hope. Faced with this challenge, business leaders today have a perplexing choice: Should they work on the work (BPM) or work on the worker (OD)?
Organizational development – one side of this artificial divide – has long pushed for a focus on people.
Is Your Enterprise Out of Control?
Before answering this question, consider for a moment: What does “out of control” mean? Someone responding with a broad, long winded answer might refer to Kevin Kelly’s most excellent and timeless book titled Out of Control (1). In a simpler context, please consider the building of a high rise office building or the addition of a large family room, sunroom, patio and pool to an existing house without the benefit of a “blueprint” developed by an architect? Does “out of control” come to mind?
The Hybrid SDLC
The purpose of this article is to provide project managers and business analysts an example of a hybrid system development life cycle (i.e., combination of agile and waterfall). Much discussion has transpired on the virtues of agile and waterfall approaches. Successes and failures can be claimed on both sides. Depending on the conditions of the project, advantages of one approach can be cited over the other. So enters the Hybrid SDLC that considers both approaches for all or portions of the project.
BPM: Toolbox for a Bionic Enterprise
Towards a Bionic World
Whatever at individual or social level, our biologic functions are more and more supported, if not replaced, by technology. Sometimes to mitigate physical or sensory deficiencies through mobility aids or improvement of auditive, visual capacities. In other occasions, electronics offer opportunities that our biological configuration cannot assume, at least for the time being all this evolution is transferring human processes from the biologic or physical world to another electronic or virtual one.
Improving the Business Operation – A Mixed Job
Business operations and their IT support are built to deliver effective outcomes from a variety of activities. Although, most companies have used focused projects to improve the cost and quality of different parts of the business, many managers believe that operations are not really designed for efficiency. Part of the problem is that over years of efficiency driven piecemeal change in both business and IT areas, the overall processes have often deteriorated and their effectiveness has often become questionable.
Three Secrets to Engaging Business and IT in Business Process Management
BPM is unique in offering so much promise while being so generally ignored. Even among companies that actively pursue some level of process improvement, only a few have a process based management structure. At least one reason for our tepid impact is our failure to model an enterprise-wide perspective in the initial launch of process improvement efforts. Gartner Inc. reports that in North America IT leads 42% of the BPM efforts and the Business leads 58% of the efforts.
Process Management Center of Excellence: Who Does What?
1. INTRODUCTION
Organizations have been trying to define who will be accountable for process management tasks[1]. This definition can: improve business performance; balance the power distribution among organization units; and engage important and different internal stakeholders. My previous articles provide guidelines on how to design the process center of excellence – PCE [3] [5]. This article provides guidance to support the decision on which organization unit can be responsible for the activities in the process management value chain.
Modeling a Net-Centric Department of Defense (DoD) Enterprise using BPMN 2.0
If a picture is a worth a thousand words, a standardized model is definitely worth multiple pages of a requirement specification. Business and IT have long used tabular descriptions, flowcharts and other means to capture and describe how their business processes are run, but if a modeling format has to go beyond being just a sketch, it requires a standardized, non-proprietary notation which can be uniformly understood by all.
The Business Architecture (BA) Paradigm
Interest in Business Architecture (BA) initiatives, case study presentations and training classes are increasing, a sign of a maturing and evolving approach.
