Articles

Capabilities & Value Streams: Business Architecture’s Essential Alliance

Author(s):

William Ulrich

President, TSG, Inc.

There is good news on the business architecture front. The level of discourse has elevated dramatically around how to effectively represent the business architecture. At the forefront of this discussion are two essential focal points: the business capability and the value stream. While certain camps have rallied around one or the other, transformative business architecture can only be achieved by incorporating both concepts into those efforts. A quick primer on business capability and the value stream puts our discussion into perspective.

Business Process Models, Business Rules and The Decision Model: How They Should Work Together

Author(s):

Larry Goldberg

Managing Partner, Knowledge Partners International LLP

This article assumes knowledge of the Decision Model.

Measures for Meaning: The Art, Science and Politics of Measures

Author(s):

Shelley Sweet

Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and President, i4 Process

Corporations track specific financial measures, use operational measures to monitor their core business, and collect some customer satisfaction measures. However, as companies move to a more process-centric approach they need to think about measures for each process and sub process, and these are often not captured today.

Boost Agility and Competitiveness With SmartBPM 6

Author(s):

Lou DiToro

President, Perfect Pages

Software firms like to tout their solutions as game changers. Few are. Most make only a modest impact on an organization’s business. Some don’t make any. The introduction of Smart BPM? 6 last March left many wondering about the impact this version of Pegasystems’ flagship product would have on the BPM industry. That’s hard to say right now, since the solution is relatively new.

We Might Clear the Fog Around SOA, but its Future is Still Cloudy

Author(s):

Sumeet Vij

Assistant Vice President/ Chief Engineer, Alion Science and Technology

Despite the widespread hype and reams of articles in technical and business journals alike, one question that still causes consternation amongst customers and practitioners alike is, “What is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)”? If compiled, the answers to this question would fill copious volumes, but a consensus on an answer would be elusive. The reason the answer to this question doesn’t fit into the mold of a precise technical definition is due to the fact that SOA is mostly a business concept, hence it has to be defined in a business context.

OMG Seeking Decision Model Notation Standard

Author(s):

Barbara von Halle

Managing Partner & Founder, Knowledge Partners International LLP

A lot has happened in the last year regarding The Decision Model. In November 2009, our book described the formalism and usage of The Decision Model (von Halle and Goldberg, 2009, Taylor & Francis LLC, The Decision Model: A Business Logic Framework Linking business and Technology). Since then, adoption of The Decision Model has escalated faster than anticipated. It also caught the attention of the Object Management Group which is the subject of this month’s column.

Measuring System Quality

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

How should the quality of a system be measured? More particularly, how should quality be ascertained when the system is complex and incorporates important components not readily evaluated by quantitative means?

A New Order of Things with the Business Architecture

Author(s):

Ralph Whittle

Enterprise Business Architect, Independent Consultant

The Business Architecture (BA) is a bold and challenging initiative, that when undertaken by visionary and innovative leaders of the enterprise brings about a “new order of things.”

Out-SOA-cing – The Challenge of Outsourcing SOA

Author(s):

John Moe

Principal Consultant, J Moe Associates

With the current hard times continuing to challenge IT budgets, I fear that all the good effort that is going into SOA currently could be squandered by ill-conceived or rushed outsourcing of the wrong services and wrong responsibilities at the wrong time to the few remaining IT service companies.

It is worth pointing out that the analyst community have consistently promoted SOA and outsourcing as being good bedfellows. There are two main models here: