Articles

Running Effective SOA Proofs of Concept

Author(s):

John Moe

Principal Consultant, J Moe Associates

As I mentioned in the last article, Selling SOA to the Business, it is important to gain buy-in from the stakeholders for your planned SOA initiatives. However, at some stage you will need to expose the business to the technology and demonstrate the specific value it will have to them. In parallel you will also want to get a good handle on what is actually possible to deliver as opposed to the hype you have been fed by the analysts.

Becoming a BDM & BPM Evangelist

Author(s):

David Pedersen

Senior Decision Architect, Knowledge Partners International LLP

So, you have just returned from a great conference where you learned that BPM (business process management and BDM (business decision management) will address many of the issues you face within your company. You now have the proof, from the experiences of other companies, as to how these methodologies can benefit your company. You’re so excited over the opportunity to make real difference in your organization. You share your excitement with a few co-workers but quickly realize that getting upper management to buy into this newfound methodology may be harder than you think.

Dashboard Design

Author(s):

Karen Tricomi

Consultant, The Process Geek

This month’s article provides tips on ways to display information in a way that is content rich. These methods display information in a way that enhances understanding, highlights important elements, and minimizes distractions.

In 1983, Edward Tufte published a remarkable book titled The Visual Display of Quantitative Information¹.

The Corporate Strategy, Business Architecture and IT

Author(s):

Ralph Whittle

Enterprise Business Architect, Independent Consultant

The Corporate Strategy defines the mission, vision and long-range objectives for conducting the business and achieving enterprise success. The Business Architecture (BA) is a blueprint of the enterprise built using architectural disciplines to improve performance. Development of the Business Architecture is a strategic initiative, not a departmental undertaking, not the pet project of a middle manager nor the latest priority of the week. The purpose of the BA is simple and clear; it is a tool used to improve enterprise wide performance as required by the strategy.

BPMS Watch: The Next Innovation in BPMS

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

One of the most successful innovations of the BPMS vendors to date has been incorporation of process modeling within the suite. Process modeling used to be a standalone business activity, requiring expensive proprietary tools that gave little thought to any automated IT implementation.

Top Down Business Execution

Author(s):

Raj Ramesh

Chief Story Teller, TopSigma

A plan is not enough

A few months back, my wife mentioned that we had not had a family vacation in years, and it’d be good if I can plan something that the whole family would enjoy.

I got to work on it immediately. There are so many wonderful places to visit; so I took a systematic approach to cull down the list to a manageable few destinations. My research included talking to friends, browsing the web, and reading travel books. Finally, I hand the answer – Rome it’ll be. I have always been fascinated with ancient civilizations.

SOA’s Transformation of Configuration, Change and Compliance Management

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

At the moment most of the SOA software configuration management discussion is dominated by service version control issues and the use of service registries to capture change management data.

Why a Business Analyst Must Understand Business Process and Procedures

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

The first time I heard the phrase business process reengineering was over ten years ago, and I was a system analyst working with a utility industry software vendor. A California locality had purchased our product to address Y2K issues, and automate all the city services. When I arrived at my client, I found that some of the city services were automated, some were not, and I had to determine a way to fit the manual approach into the system.

I found myself wearing multiple hats, and using my journalism training, which enabled me to research and identify the right people, determine a method of relating while building trust, and eliciting the necessary information to define the current and eventual future state of the processes and impacts to workflow with the new system.

Discovering & Hiring Collaborative Leaders

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Many companies which have begun applying lean or agile practices in their work place are now finding they need to reconsider who they hire to fill the more collaborative and facilitative roles required by those methodologies. Unfortunately, most companies believe they can magically transform their firm into a highly productive and enjoyable place to work by asking traditionally trained managers to simply apply a few new practices like value mapping, iterative development and an intense focus on quality.

Business Architecture Tackles Complex, Horizontal Business Challenges

Author(s):

William Ulrich

President, TSG, Inc.

Senior management wants to get serious about consolidating and managing customer information. Customer contact and related information is scattered across dozens of business units, each of which updates and manages this information in unique, nontransparent ways. Continuing the current piecemeal approach to customer management, however, creates severe roadblocks to servicing customers more effectively, streamlining operations and competing with other companies in your industry.