Linkedin: Theoretical BPM Question: Are there three dimensions to a business? People, Process, and ???

<discussion ref="Theoretical BPM Question: Are there three dimensions to a business? People, Process, and ???" />

I think the following list of types of artefact is important for BPM as a discipline:

- events
- processes
- activities
- rules
- roles
- objects(data and documents)
- audit trails
- key performance indicators (KPIs)
- services

So far, the technology is not necessary. But to implement a good enterprise BPM system, a modern BPM suite is required (but not sufficient). See also "Should we consider third (forgotten) BPM?".

Thanks,
AS

BPMNEXUS: BPM success stories: the highs, the lows, the lessons learned

<discussion ref="http://bpmnexus.ning.com/forum/topics/bpm-success-stories-the-highs" />

An example for a newcomer....

Situation:
A “non-BPM” project for replacing about 30 separate publishing systems by a more modern electronic publishing system. The particular difficulty in this project was the project members’ perception that their business processes are so special that it is not possible to find a single system which is suitable for everyone. As a result, the project did not progress at all despite two years’ of heated meetings.

Task:
Unblock the project.

Action:
Together with the project members, we carried out a quick BPM modelling of the most important business processes and derived an agreed list of about 20 common services which covered the majority of needs for everyone. The difference between many of the processes analysed was only in the logic of using those services (e.g. different sequencing, different routing, etc.).

Result:
This agreed list of common services and the ability to easily combine services into processes were used as selection criteria for a new electronic publishing system. The project was completed and the new electronic publishing system has been selected.

Note:
You may say that this is not a good example of BPM. I think, that without a commonly agreed BPM reference model it is not possible to compare BPM projects.

Thanks,
AS

Re: Five Fatal Errors for Business Analysts

<discussion ref="http://www.integrated-modeling-method.com/process-modeling/five-fatal-errors-for-business-analysts />


I use a modelling procedure which I think avoids some of these pitfalls. The purpose of the modelling procedure is to analyse a building block (what it is supposed to do) and to synthesise its implementation (how it does this) as the explicit coordination of other building blocks (processes or activities). It is an iterative procedure – we can apply it until we have left only indivisible building blocks (i.e. activities). During modelling, we collect and refine different artefacts (including data, rules, roles, KPI, etc). We consider that building blocks are constructed recursively, like Russian dolls, to avoid getting bogged down in detail.

More detail in section 6 of http://www.improving-bpm-systems.com/pubs/AS-BPMDS08.pdf

Thanks,
AS

BPM in Action: Calling for Input on BPM in Cloud Computing: Let's Clear Away the Fog

<discussion ref="http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/bpminaction/2009/04/calling_for_input_on_bpm_in_cl.php />

Dennis,

I would approach the “BPM in the cloud” topic from a) a BPM reference model and b) an architectural framework for improving enterprise BPM systems.

At first, it should be clear the definition of BPM. I think, the most important BPM is “enterprise BPM system” which is a portfolio of business processes of the enterprise, as well as the practices and tools for governing the design, execution and evolution of this portfolio as a system. Well-known BPM as a discipline and BPM as software are used to implement this “third” BPM (see http://improving-bpm-systems.blogspot.com/2009/04/should-we-consider-third-forgotten-bpm.html).

The BPM reference model tells us that any enterprise BPM system is a complex and dynamic set of interconnected and interdependent artefacts: events, processes, rules, roles, objects, services, etc. The evolution of some artefacts and the relationships between them is necessary to accommodate typical changes in policies, priorities, compliance, technology, laws, etc. So, to be agile and responsive in business, it must be easy to modify all artefacts and their relationships without causing any negative effects (e.g. unexpected delays and undesired consequences) in any part of the BPM system.

The architectural framework defines the four main architectural principles necessary to achieve a high level of flexibility.

1. All artefacts must be versionable throughout their lifecycle
.

2. All artefacts must evolve to become digital, externalised and virtual
.

3. All relationships between artefacts must be modelled explicitly
.

4. All models must be made to be executable
.

The second principle can be extended that, finally (see figure below), the artefact should be able to exist somewhere in a “cloud” (i.e. somewhere on the Internet without any knowledge of, expertise in or control over the technology infrastructure that supports it) and should be available whenever needed. Although the concept of cloud computing is still in its infancy, our experience shows that the best use of this concept requires both
a. a customer-centric (i.e. not vendor-centric) “cloud” and
b. the internal preparedness of an enterprise to put its artefacts into the “cloud”.



I think, that this approach can reduce the cost of moving to clouds, because it considers a possibility to use clouds from the architecture of the system. Also it can help to define that SLA should be required for a particular “clouded” service, because explicit and executable models provide enough information to evaluate how the availability of a particular service contribute into the availability of higher services.

Thanks,
AS

Re: Humans Swimming In The Intalio Pool

<discussion ref="Humans Swimming In The Intalio Pool" />

I agree with Anatoly's diagramms and think that they can be more explicit -- namely, by separating humans' added-value work and administrative work to "animate" the process. So, there are 4 pools, as shown below:



Both human participants -- candidate and HR manager -- follow their internal processes (COOR02 and COOR01 respectively). The latter carry out the coordination (some kind of choreography). Those processes are "the main thing" to be made EXPLICIT by a business analyst.

Thanks,
AS

BPMnexus: Let's get started !

<discussion ref="Let's get started" />

I propose to give a context first. My sequence of concepts is the following:

1. Improving enterprise business performance is a permanent imperative and a daunting task these days.

2. Evolving of an enterprise as a complex system requires its rational construction.

3. The best (so far) approach for such a rational construction is process-oriented enterprise. [The business world understood a long time ago that services and processes are the backbones of most enterprise business systems. ]

4. The best (so far) method for the realisation of process-oriented enterprise is BPM (as a discipline -- allows you to model, automate, execute, control, measure and optimise the flow of business activities that span the enterprise’s systems, employees, customers and partners within and beyond the enterprise boundaries) [other methods for continual performance improvement -- BPR, TQM., ISO 9000, lean, TPS, Six sigma, etc. well contributed]

5. Each process-oriented enterprise has its own "enterprise BPM system" (portfolio of the business processes as well as the practices and tools for governing the design, execution and evolution of this portfolio) [it may not perfect, but it does exist, e.g. as ISO 9000 quality management system].

6. A specialised class of enterprise software -- BPM suite (coherent set of software tools) -- is used for facilitating the implementation of an enterprise BPM system.

7. As a rule, BPM suite is necessary, but not sufficient for good implementation of an enterprise BPM system -- other information technologies (EA, ECM, SOA, BI, BAM, BEM, ITIL, etc.) to be considered together.


Thanks,
AS

Seminar in Moscow

Two presentations from this seminar are available via slideshare

http://www.slideshare.net/samarin/how-to-get-bpm-working-for-your-enterprise

http://www.slideshare.net/samarin/practical-aspects-of-implementation-enterprise-bpm-systems

Thanks,
AS