Much of the discussion about collaborative methodologies like Lean, Agile and Design Build has, in the past been about creating continuous flow of value, team dynamics, technical practices and even the project management techniques required to get effective and acceptable products delivered and/or deployed. What teams in all environments quickly find out, however, is they are dependent on other organizational dynamics outside their purview, like securing customer involvement, issue escalation, resource allocation, even facility management becomes important.
BPMS Watch: Five Things to Love About BPMN 2.0
BPMN 2.0 is almost here. If all goes as planned, it will be voted on by OMG members in June. Assuming it passes, that doesn’t mean BPMN 2.0 is officially adopted and available in commercial tools, just that it has entered the “finalization” phase when tool vendors can start building it in. Even though the diagram notation of BPMN 2.0 appears little changed from previous versions, it represents a big step forward.
Book Review – Applied SOA: Service-Oriented Architecture and Design Strategies
There is no shortage of books that cover SOA topics, but few of them go beyond background information, telling us what a service is and what technologies we can use to network them, but leaving us on our own to figure out how to identify or design a service. Fewer still go into the design of SOA solutions for the enterprise. I’m happy to report that this book is a welcome exception.
The Maturity Level of a Process as a Principle Factor for Process Automation (First Pillar)
“A high level of process maturity is considered a fundamental pillar for comprehensive process automation and successful future implementation. The process operation and the time this process has been utilized by the business must be well understood by the person or people who are going to automate said process. Considering implementing a theoretical process or a process that possesses a low level of maturity is likely to result in failure and/or extended execution time and/or a high investment in cost and resources.
Aligning Strategy & Execution
Strategy [strat’-i-jee]: a plan, method or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result. Execute [ek’-si-kyoot]: to produce in accordance with a plan or design. Clearly, the two ideas are closely related; one involves setting a plan and the other involves putting the same plan into motion. Simple enough. Yet, why is it that so many companies fail to make the connection?
In my experience, most organizations are very adept at planning.
The Essence of Business Architecture
There continues to be confusion over the practice of business architecture and the role of the business architect. One way to clear this up is to examine other forms of architecture and the related role of the architect. First, we should restate the industry definition.
Doing More with Less
Today’s challenge to increase productivity with fewer resources has lead to numerous methodologies and toolkits to help organizations meet their objectives and become more profitable and effective. This certainly makes the case for applying two well known and proven methodologies Business Process Management (BPM) and Six Sigma.
Resource Oriented Architecture
According to a 2008 Gartner Survey1 there has been an increase in the number of organizations implementing web services using Representational State Transfer (REST) and Plain Old XML (POX).
Reviews: Necessary Evil or Symptom?
During any BPMS demo, the vendor will demonstrate how the application handles the review and approval cycle of some work product, e.g., a document, form, or report. Review and approval of these products is a process cycle that all businesses share, and in my opinion, one that’s entirely too common. Reviews aren’t disappearing anytime soon. They are in some cases a necessary evil. However, let’s be clear – reviews aren’t value added activities.
Collaboration and Business Decision Management
Business Rule Management Systems (BRMS) have been described as the ultimate platform to achieve true collaboration. By bridging the gap between business and technology, two previously disparate groups that did not speak the same language could now do so in the universal language of business rules. And to a certain extent these systems met that goal. However, there have been persistent nagging issues centered around things like requirements and change management that seem to keep getting in the way of collaboration and, ultimately, true agility.