In this webinar Ben Bushman, our Director of Professional Services, will demonstrate how the Intalio|BPMS Business Process Management System can support and simplify your SOA implementation.

We welcome you to join us on Thursday, January 26 at 9:30 a.m PST for a live demo.

Be sure to bring your questions!

And be ready to learn all about how you can use Intalio|BPMS to achieve your SOA goals!
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 Is it possible to more completely grasp the idea of “enterprise”? 

And thereby submit that enterprise to the will of executive leadership?

John Zachman, well-known evangelist for enterprise architecture and originator of the Zachman “Framework for Enterprise Architecture”, says “yes”.

Canada’s DAMA affiliate IRMAC scored a coup last week by hosting Mr. Zachman on his road show for an update of the famous Zachman Framework.   Mr. Zachman gave a comprehensive tour of the Framework, the reasoning behind it and the advantages that adopting organizations might enjoy.

Mr. Zachman’s key message was that the application of normalization and ontological modeling to low-order, high-entropy organizations – i.e. organizations which are failing due to high cost structures and sclerotic inflexibility -- would reverse that state.  The sciences of organizational normalization and ontological modeling, defined by the Zachman Framework, unlock enormous benefits for organizational stakeholders.  . . . read more

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The promise of BPM technology is only realized within the context of traditional management skills and discipline.  Ironically it is an erroneous common pattern of “magical thinking” that impedes success in both traditional- and "BPM technology"-enabled management environments.

2. INTERVENTION WARNING AGAINST OVERSELLING BPM TECHNOLOGY

On a discussion hosted by the BP Group on LinkedIn, member Mr. Ajit Kapoor has made an excellent intervention in this discussion.  Our root discussion concerns an “experimental BPM technology sales pitch” which posited that “for the first time in history, we have a technology that is explicitly about taking your vision about how your business operates, and building tools that directly make it possible to run your . . . read more

On the LinkedIn BP Group, in response to your host's item Selling BPM Reveals Essence Of BPM, one of the participants contributed an excellent response questioning the emphasis on the idea of technology when selling BPM.  This dialogue is a great opportunity to highlight the importance of seeing BPM as a business technology.

Let's start by looking at what Wikipedia (August 5th, 2011) says to introduce the concept of technology:

"Technology is the making, usage and knowledge of tools, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or serve some purpose. The word technology comes from Greek τεχνολογία (technología); from τέχνη (téchnē), meaning "art, skill, craft", and -λογία (-logía), meaning "study of-".[1] The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology, and information technology."

This Wikipedia definition is a nice; the implication of course is that an "abstraction layer" is also business technology. And even methodologies . . . read more

Below is a draft BPM sales pitch which is also an inventory of BPM concepts.  It's all about business motivation, and revealing the power of BPM.  Is this how you see BPM? If not, why not?

BPM Provides The Tools For The Job, Now

Business process management is about the technology of the work you do. 

For the first time in history, we have a technology that is explicitly about taking your vision about how your business operates, and building tools that directly make it possible to run your business, according to your vision. 

All other technology is really mostly about technology and bits and bytes and machines talking to machines.  . . . read more

The boffins at McKinsey have just issued a stirring call to "free the reps"!

According to the consulting company, at one representative global firm, 75% of inside sales reps' time was spent not selling!

This frustrating sales situation is not uncommon, despite what McKinsey says is "the guiding principle of all sales operations", which is "to maximize time for selling and relationship building".  Of course sales people and sales executives, and probably even general management, all know that sales people should be selling.  But given that sales people everywhere are facing similar issues, it's helpful to have a spotlight on the situation.

As a professional B2B sales person focused on BPM, your host is naturally interested in the subject of the McKinsey article -- and how BPM is one point of leverage for improving sales operations.  The McKinsey article also raises larger questions about sales management; your host has now commented on these issues in the letter below. 

You can read the whole McKinsey Quarterly article and follow up reader comments including your hosts' comment, at the following URL. (Please note you will need to register, although there is no charge.) . . . read more

BPM prospects often ask a question about "simulation".  Our standard answer is "simulation is best done by a best-of-breed business simulation product, outside of BPM".  This answer is usually delivered after some qualification to discover what the prospect means by "simulation".  Some of the time the prospect is concerned about technical simulations and the regular process of software QA.  But the majority of the time the prospect wants to be able to do business what-if simulations to answer questions such as "how many warehouse staff should we have" or "should we add a new warehouse in the Midwest".

Why is the BPM business simulation question so frequently asked?  The reason is that the question is directly related the two main business cases for BPM.  BPM is justified either on efficiency terms or on business model terms.  The BPM efficiency business case is the same IT efficiency business case that has driven most IT investments for two generations.  Efficiency in the best of situations is about dramatically reducing costs for a given business process; in the worst of situations, it's about "paving the cow path"! . . . read more

You'd expect the BPM-savvy practitioners and evangelists such as found on LinkedIn's "BP Group" to be able to easily come up with a good definition of BPM   .  A specific and actionable definition.  You'd be wrong.

In a BP Group forum discussion entitled "Can Anyone Make One Sentence Describing BPM", most of the answers were generic and non-actionable and often sounded like mission statements -- the kind of feel-good mission statements that are ridiculed by cynical business writers -- or worse the statements were self-referential ("BPM is about improving your processes").  In fairness. participants shared many worthwile insights.  It's just that the there was a general and disappointing failure to answer the question in a useful way.

Let's look at what would be a good top-level definition of business process management -- and then why a good definition is important.

On the forum, Kenneth Beard came the closest to a good description of BPM with his "scientific management of work activity to enable informed decision-making", although I would make the case that final phrase in this definition is outside the scope of a definition of BPM.

Your host proposed the that BPM can be simply defined as "the modelling and management of repetitive work", which is certainly not original, but this concise definition emphasizes a fundamental concept, specifically the centrality of the question of work to the definition of BPM. . . . read more

After decades of achievement in the development of software technologies and software engineering, the software industry is rightly acknowledged as having contributed enormously to every aspect of business, social and personal life.  It is a general belief, fostered by both science and culture that a "long revolution" based on IT will continue on, bringing ever more amazing, delightful and useful innovations.

This expectation of progress can probably be depicted as a linear function with a nice upward slope.  While Whiggish expectations of continual progress are nice, the reality of software engineering is less rosy.  The realization of future progress based on software technology may not be so easily achieved and the immediate future of software development is probably more of a step function.

The current state of software engineering and data management is characterized by what could be called a "semantic ceiling".  On the software engineering side, the newest software products and software development are, while often quite wonderful, still rather limited in what they accomplish:  mashups, social applications, situational applications, modeling tools, more SOA, point business applications etc.  The scope of these new applications is typically either siloed or trivial in some sense.  On the data management side, the growth of data resources has exacerbated the chaos of data that confront both business and individual trying to make . . . read more

Takeaway Summary:   According to the theory of Nobel Prize winning economist Ronald Coase, corporations exist to manage the transaction costs involved in organizing work.  And the size of a corporation is determined by the optimal management of those costs.  However, new information technologies have changed that transaction cost landscape for business processes.  It is now more than ever possible to disaggregate the work of the firm, and still maintain corporate identity and control.  And for the B2B integration business, the good news is that integration technologies have a leading role to play in this evolution.  In support of a focus on "core competenc . . . read more

Dynamic BPM, along with Adaptive Case Management, is the name given to a growing body of practical knowledge about building better software for business process.  The trouble with much of existing BPM is that poorly done, the implementation of BPM can contribute to a reduction in organizational flexibility.  The wags have it as "pouring concrete over your business" -- as if enough concrete wasn't already there from the acquisition of ERP systems.  It's fair to say that no one is to blame for this -- and ER . . . read more

Amit Kapur, former COO of MySpace, has a fascinating short item today entitled "The Future Will Be Personalized"  (http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/16/the-future-will-be-personalized/ Nov 16th, 2010).  He has a terrific graph about signal-to-noise ratios and information production and overload. And he identifies various new technologies coming out of academia as a remedy for the near-impending collapse of our human ability to sift through the deluge of data.  Identifed solutions include, in particular, natural language processing and semantic technologies. . . . read more

The Product Camp Toronto 2010 event is fantastic.  The Camp team has put together a superb event involving presenters and discussions that provide terrific insights into Product Management and Product Marketing Management.   Starting with Stephen Pollack's keynote, we've been taken through a non-trivial exploration of the art and science of translating vision into saleable product.  The world of product management is far removed from the popular conception of the "eureka moment" that is at the core of popular conceptions of the invention process.  Instead here today we have a tour of the "productization process".  Interestingly, this process is not new:  Thomas Edison's labs a hundred years ago were very much about t . . . read more

Your host is off to ProductCamp Toronto (http://www.productcamp.org/toronto/) tomorrow (May 30th).  This full-day volunteer-run event presents almost 20 sessions in three tracks:  Product Management 101, Start Me Up! and Advanced Product Management.  Your host is particularly looking forward to the item on "Product Marketing In The Overall Scheme Of Product Management".
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For the final Invited Talk, this afternoon Dr. Alan Rector, of the University of Manchester, gave a very nice overview of ontology, contained within a talk covering ontologies and clinical systems.  The talk was widely appreciated by the audience, and from your host's perspective, Dr. Rector's overview of the state of the art was terrific. As a bonus Dr. Rector included at least a dozen or so pithy insights about what you might call "the ontology business".  . . . read more

Almost 10 years ago, your host attended FOIS '01, in Ogunquit, Maine.  Having been introduced to the world of software ontologies in conversation with Prof. Graeme Hirst of the University of Toronto, he developed a serious interest in the world of ontologies, on both a personal and a business level.  . . . read more

A celebration of diversity is not what one would expect from what a colleague characterized as the "dry world of ontology".  Yet this was the topic of several presenters at today's morning sessions at FOIS 2010.  Especially, at this morning's "Invited Talk", by John Bateman, Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Bremen, the topic of ontological diversity was presented as both requirement and artifact for successful ontological engineering. . . . read more

Yesterday's FOIS 2010 Workshop participants enjoyed scheduled morning presentations by Antony Galton, Fabian Neuhaus, Barry Smith and Michael Grüninger. This blog item is a report of those proceedings, along with a few editorial comments. A companion blog item will offer some analysis of the intersection of ontological engineering and practical opportunity, from the perspective of sociology and business.

Ontological engineering may be reaching a tipping point in capability and acceptance, and if that tipping point is reached, the construction of dramatically more powerful and effective software would be expected in the foreseeable future (although how steep the post-inflection-point curve is, remains to be seen.) But this ideal vision will only be reached if the market for ontology sciences, services and products takes off. . . . read more

Almost 10 years ago, the idea of ontologies as applied to information systems was still in its infancy.  Your host attended FOIS 2001, only the second-ever FOIS conference, and was nevertheless intrigued by the possibilities -- not only from a research and engineering perspective, but also from that of business and evangelization.  

Now in 2010, your host's role as sales manager for an open source BPM platform provider gives him opportunities to see how the application of productized ontological science can make an impact in addressing some of the vexing challenges of today's organizations.  . . . read more

What is the secret to great software for human beings?  Not just any secret, but the secret?

The qualifier "for human beings" is an important caveat to this dramatic question -- because there is lots of great software which performs work not strictly for human beings.  For example, powerful mainframe software manages the insurance contracts for millions of insured people.  While the ultimate beneficiaries of such marvellous technology are human beings, the sorting and update and retrieval of these records could better be described as "for the organization".  Software "for human beings" implies software that is directly and specifically intended to augment the brain power of an individual human.  Examples of software "for human beings" include email clients, contact managers (CRM), personal information managers (PIMS), word processing etc., graphics editors.

The secret to great software for human beings is support for narrative.  Narrative, which is a more formal way of saying "story telling", is about the meaningful progression of events organized starting from a single point of view.  Stories can utlimately weave together many individual stories, but the building block of narrative has to be the story from one person's point of view. . . . read more

How much time do you have?  Front and centre, the question of time is one of the most important questions facing any technology vendor. 

In high-technology, product lifecycles are probably a year or two.  Whether this information comes from personal experience, a scan of the trade press, or a review of serious literature on the subject by Geoffrey Moore or Clayton Christensen, the answer is the same.  You have a very short window of opportunity in which to establish your footprint.  You can call it "high -velocity technology diffusion" or you can call it a high-pressure lifestyle.  Regardless, when you deliver and win and establish your footprint -- that's only a ticket to play the next round! . . . read more

A Seven-Step Recipe For Success

Assess the following seven steps either as risk reduction or as opportunity acquisition:

1. SEE HOW CUSTOMER BUSINESS MODEL CHANGES DRIVE OPPORTUNITIES: Evolving business models and business architectures demand new business information platforms. Standards-driven technology platforms, often including open source components, provide the technical capabilities, comparatively low-cost investment requirements and attractive risk profiles that CEOs and CIOs need.

2. DEFINE THE BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY SALES CHALLENGE: In response to these new business demands, the BPO and B2B technical platform markets are evolving under such names as  "Cloud", "SaaS" or "PaaS" etc. Technology originators targeting these markets have two monetization challenges: (1) how to productize hard-won knowledge and (2) how to build footprint fast.  How do you productize your knowledge in a topsy-turvy world of COTS, open source and everything in between?  And how do you establish a wide enough market footprint to ensure longevity?

3. ASK HOW MANY MONTHS DO YOU HAVE:  If you are bringing a new technology or product to market, how many months do you think you have to establish a viable presence? 12 months? 18 months at most? Given the odds, it is perhaps astonishing that so many companies are still willing to compete. There are so many tasks that have to be performed well. BDM can assist in only one specific area, but it is an area that is both important -- and not typically a core capability for technology pioneers. . . . read more