Articles

The Process Practitioner: An Independent Evaluation of Lombardi’s Blueprint

Author(s):

Karen Tricomi

Consultant, The Process Geek

Companies are right to be cautious about employing software to solve process problems. Automating a broken process simply serves to make it more efficiently broken. However, documenting processes is the first – and in my opinion, the most important – step in the improvement cycle. When Lombardi recently offered to demonstrate Blueprint, their web-based documentation and collaboration product, I approached the demonstration as a business professional with processes that need improvement, rather than an IT analyst or industry expert. Criteria for evaluation were ease of us

How to Select the Right Tools for your BPM Initiative

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

So you finally sold the value of your BPM initiative to your company’s executives. Now it is time to deliver. Selecting the right tools is a critical step to help you succeed. This may not sound that difficult but if the proper amount of effort is not directed toward this decision point, you could find yourself spending more time with your vendor than with your business partners.

BPM Implementation – An Application Reduction Strategy

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Many companies today are looking to reduce the number of installed/supported applications as a way to save money and reduce complexity. Money is saved via reduced licensing, support and integration costs. However, many do not have a clear execution strategy, even while investing in application portfolio management solutions to get a better understanding of the application portfolio and tracking existing applications.

One obvious route to application reduction is standardizing on a single application globally if possible and if not, to a single application in a given region.

SOA Readiness – A Perspective

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

What is SOA?

To be ready for something you first need to understand what it is. SOA is often defined in technical terms about the composition of services. Whist technically correct this encourages people to become caught up in technologies and constraints very early on.

I prefer to think of SOA as a solution approach that helps IT solve business problems by sharing and re-using:

Information and data e.g. user directories
Functionality e.g. quote generation
Know how e.g.

The Conscious Corporation: Using Organization Surveys Differently

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

There is a new approach to surveying employees that can create the constant and comprehensive feedback an organization needs. Traditionally employee surveys have been large enough that they were done infrequently. They were often part of a major assessment that was comprehensive and cumbersome. No wonder that employees traditionally complain that nothing ever comes of their inputs. In contrast, imagine a survey that is (a) 1-2 minutes long (perhaps 5-12 questions) (b) sent out to targeted samples within the organization (c) once a month or more.

Business Decision Management in 2009

Author(s):

Larry Goldberg

Managing Partner, Knowledge Partners International LLP

Happy New Year. I think.

2009 opens with the most ominous, and the most hopeful of portents. With the global economy in its deepest dive since the great depression we are holding our collective breath in the hope that the government can steer us away from a calamity such as was experienced in that terrible era. At the same time we welcome an historic new U.S. President, and wish him (and us) success, whatever our political stripe.

SOA Governance Part I – Getting Started

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

One of the key selling points of adopting an SOA approach to system design is flexibility and adaptability; i.e., reduced future cost and faster time to market. The biggest flaw in this argument is that it is not SOA as a design approach that returns these benefits but rather a properly designed and effectively managed SOA Governance process that makes these benefits a reality.

The Business Architect Must See the Forest for the Trees

Author(s):

William Ulrich

President, TSG, Inc.

Participants in business architecture discussion groups and training seminars often ask about the profile of the business architect. This is an important question because enterprises establishing and expanding business architecture efforts are seeking individuals to staff centers of excellence and project teams. What skills should such a person have? What attributes describe the business architect? In my experience, the most important attribute that I look for in a business architect is the ability to see the “forest for the trees”.

Developing an SOA Roadmap

Author(s):

John Moe

Principal Consultant, J Moe Associates

Although SOA is hardly a new concept, very few organisations have yet developed and rolled out a complete Service Oriented Architecture. There are many reasons for this, but I have found that in many cases there has not been a sound foundation built to ensure that the right architecture is used at the right time for the right problems. Also, business cases for SOA have been notoriously difficult to construct and sell to the purse string holders.

Optimize, Then Outsource

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

The outsourcing of parts of IT into Cloud has become more then a prognosis, it has become a reality. Moreover, it has become hype, a new ‘big thing’.

The outsourcing of parts of IT into Cloud has become more then a prognosis, it has become a reality. Moreover, it has become hype, a new ‘big thing’. Not many analysts and practitioners, though, have realized that this hype differs dramatically from all others: this one means that all previous hypes, intended to improve and modernize in-house IT have failed.