Articles

Can Six Sigma and Business Process Management Co-Exist?

Author(s):

Marvin Wurtzel

Faculty Member, BPMInstitute.org and Principal Consultant, Marvin M. Wurtzel & Associates, Inc.

One of the most powerful ways to improve business performance is combining business process management (BPM) strategies with Six Sigma strategies. BPM strategies emphasize process improvements and automation to drive performance, while Six Sigma uses statistical analysis to drive quality improvements. The two strategies are not mutually exclusive, however, and some savvy companies have discovered that combining BPM and Six Sigma can create dramatic results.

After Requirements: Is the BA Done?

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

What is the role, if any, of the Business Analyst (BA), once the requirements are done? What happens after weeks or months have been spent eliciting and analyzing requirements for the project? Documents are finished; reviews are completed; approvals are recorded; the requirements are “done”. But, is the BA done? Not if you want high quality, cost-effective solutions.

First Thing’s First

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Why is it that the “what” part of new product development gets such scant attention in the development process? What a new product should be is a question seldom seriously explored. In the world of advanced planning, the notion of “concept” is pretty narrowly constrained. True development of a new concept more often than not is ignored in favor of detailed investigation of variations on already-formed ideas introduced intact at the beginning of the process!

BPMS Watch: What is Case Management?

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

As I prepare to update my BPMS Report series, task number one is taking a fresh look at the process types or “use cases” that guide the evaluation analysis.

Making the Transition to Services Engineering

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Brett Champlin is the President of the Association for Business Process Management Professionals (ABPMP.org) and a Senior Process Consultant with a large insurance company. He has led business process transformation projects for the last 15 years. Champlin is also on the adjunct faculty at Roosevelt University and the University of Chicago.

Champlin is a pioneer and advocate of the new field of “services engineering”. In the last two hundred years, we shifted from a primarily agricultural-based economy to a manufacturing-based economy because of the industrial revolution.

Business Architecture: Leveraged in Strategic IT Planning

Author(s):

Geoffrey Balmes

Business Architect Executive, Independent Consultant

Considering the forum in which this article is published, I think it is safe to say that anyone reading it already knows the value of Business Architecture. I hope we also share the opinion that the IT Architecture is secondary to the Business Architecture: the business is the driver, not IT.

That is nice theory, but it hasn’t been reality for quite some time. New technology trends emerge, people with an eye for technology see the benefits, and they sell the idea of implementing the new technology based on those benefits.

Converging BPM and Business Rules Maturity Models

Author(s):

Tom DeBevoise

Co-Author of The Microguide to Process Modeling in BPMN 2.0, www.tomdebevoise.com

Readers of the Business Rules topic section have probably found Barbara von Halle’s writing on the Rules Maturity model RMM. The model depicts an enterprise’s staged understanding of business rules and their progressive benefits. The model starts with stage zero, no recognition of importance of formal processes of managing policies and corporate guidance through business rules. In short, the stages are:

SOA Governance: Adoption and Best Practices

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

Governance has been defined as: “the art and discipline of managing outcomes through structured relationships, procedures and policies.” Governance plays an important part in the adoption and ongoing operation of any SOA initiative. It enforces compliance with the architecture and common semantics, and facilitates managing the enterprise wide development, use and evolution of services.

When discussing SOA governance, it is important to make sure that everyone is on the same page about what type of governance they are referring to.

BPM is Not the Same as BPR

Author(s):

Janelle Hill

VP & Distinguished Analyst, BPM Research, Gartner Inc.

In the late 1980s, Michael Hammer and James Champy published a bestselling book, Reengineering the Corporation, promoting the idea that radical redesign and reorganization of an enterprise was necessary to lower costs and increase quality so American businesses could become more competitive.

Transitioning to Services Engineering

Author(s):

BPMInstitute.org

Business Relationship Manager - Product Lifecycle Management, Chevron Corporation

In past columns, I have discussed the idea of services engineering, the importance of understanding businesses as service providers, and the characteristics of different types of services. This column looks at the challenges of measuring and managing process performance in services industries.