A process design ecosystem demands a reliable way to transfer the process definitions between tools. Bruce Silver’s post on Model Portability in BPMN 2.0 is very timely indeed. What he demonstrates is four different modeling tools, drawing BPMN diagrams, writing the diagram as XPDL, and then reading those into Sketch Pad (an open source process modeler) and displaying the result. Continue reading
On March 26, 2009 I will be participating in another “BPM in Practice” seminar in San Diego. This full day event will explore workflow and BPM from a number of different points of view. We start with the basic, advance quickly to the new enterprise architecture, and from there explore 5 key standards and how they might or might not be applicable. While there is an organized presentation, the sessions are generally intimate enough that we can have a discussion on any side topic that the audience wants to go into. Continue reading
Interesting link for the day. Barry Schwartz talks about wisdom and what it means to do a good job.
Barry Schwartz on our Loss of Wisdom
The reason I link it here is because everything he says is very applicable to the field of business processes. He give an example where the official job description of a janitor does not actually describe the job. This is not that surprising because when asked to describe a job or a process people often find they don’t really know the job. He also talks about the dangers of over-reliance on rules with an example of lemonade and group of social workers who obviously overreact to the situation but blame it on the need to follow rules. In BPM we emphasize the need to use rules, but this is a great example of the downside to rules. He says rules allow people to stop thinking. He says we need more wisdom (but he does not say how to do this).
My question for the day: we can codify rules and incentives, but how can we make a business process which enhances (or at least rewards) wisdom? What does “BPM for Wise People” look like?
Michael zur Muehlen has written a short article on “The Business Process Analytics Format (BPAF)“. This is a portable format that will allow the history events from multiple BPM servers to be aggregated together to a single process analytics server. It can be used to connect one vendor’s process engine to another vendor’s analytics server. This proposed standard will be a critical element for gaining insight into how well your processes are running, especially when you have workflow engines from multiple vendors in your enterprise. Continue reading
Most BPM systems offer some form of simulation capability. Simulation capabilities range from the very simple ability to walk through a process, to very sophisticated case-arrival/activity performance models, and even to goal-seeking optimization capabilities. In this post I explore the relationship between simulation and Model PReserving/Transforming Strategy. Continue reading
In an earlier post, I introduced the concept of a “Model Preserving Strategy” versus a “Model Transforming Strategy” and defined them as two approaches that a BPMS can take in the lifecycle of a business process. I then posted a couple of situations where the Model Preserving Strategy is a better choice, but it is not always a better choice. This post is dedicated to those situations where the Model Transforming Strategy shines.
The main reason for transforming a model into another form, is to realize performance improvements. Continue reading
We often talk about the process “round trip”. The process lifecycle is explicitly about moving the process through different people with different specializations. The business analyst draws a high-level model and the systems integrator includes details for connecting the systems. Another dynamic is the continual process improvement that occurs when you assess how effective the current process is, make a change at the high level, and take that change through the lifecycle again. Continue reading
A by-product of automating work is the records is made that indicate precisely when each task is started and completed. Analytic information about how your organization is working can actually be far more valuable than the cost savings derived from the automation. A lot can be learned from this analysis that can help you improve your organization. Some claim that this is the principle benefit of BPM.
In an earlier post, I introduced the concept of a “Model Preserving Strategy” versus a “Model Transforming Strategy” and defined them as two approaches that a BPMS can take in the lifecycle of a business process. This post delves into how process analytics are effected by model strategy. Continue reading
It started out as a casual conversation over drinks at the Oct 2008 BPM Tech Show in DC, late in the afternoon, after the tutorials and presentations had finished. We wanted to know: “why is there such a variation in different BPM systems?” This expanded into a breakfast meeting the following morning on the topic of “What are advantages/ disadvantages of either preserving or transforming a BPM model?” We found that most existing systems tend to follow one of two possible strategies. Existing BPM Systems (and their associated methodologies) can be categorized as supporting either a “Model Transforming Strategy” or a “Model Preserving Strategy”.
It was remarkable how passionate people were about their position. Continue reading
Bruce Silver’s latest post “Reframing the BPMN vs BPEL Debate” calls to question whether it is worth continued discussion of the definition of BPM. Like most of Bruce’s posts, it is insightful and well worth reading. This is in response to a post by Boris Lublinsky on “BPEL: Who Needs It Anyway?”
I am a little surprised by Bruce’s response, Continue reading
Thinking Matters 