We held a tweetjam on the subject of Adaptive Case Management (ACM) on July 15. I have been on vacation since then, and only now getting around to writing about it. What a big task! In two hours 660 posts were made, many of them quite thought provoking. After eliminating the duplicate RT posts, it still came to over 6000 words. So it is going to take me three posts to get this all in. Here is part 1. Continue reading
I gave a talk last week at the Process.gov conference on the subject of “The Nature of Knowledge Work” which happens also to be the first chapter of Mastering the Unpredictable. I explore in depth what it is that makes knowledge work different from routine work. I have converted that talk into a slide cast for your enjoyment 🙂 Continue reading
I have had a number of discussions with Jean-Jacques Dubray about the nature of work, and particularly whether unpredictable work exists. Jean-Jacques is a luminary in the field, so I figured he has probably a well considered opinion on the subject, and I really wanted to understand what he meant. So I invited him to discuss this. Continue reading
Jacob Ukelson bring up some really interesting points in his new post on “Guidelines, Best Practices and Checklists – the Process Model for Unstructured Processes?“. He starts by referencing an old article in The New Yorker by Atul Gawande on some research he did on checklists, and is apparently in a new book “The checklist manifesto : how to get things right“.
Atul Gawande expounds the virtues of the lowly checklist Continue reading
At dinner with Forrester analyst Clay Richardson he mentioned that process support should be less like mass transit trains and buses, and more like a Zipcar. Both approaches can be seen as a way to solve metropolitan transportation problems; both are more efficient in energey use; both save the consumer money over owning and maintaining (including parking) a private vehicle. This fits well with ideas I have been trying to communicate Continue reading
For you who read this blog on occasion, please help. I am looking for any valid BPMN diagrams that can not be represented as standard XPDL. Many people understand that XPDL is a superset of BPMN, meaning that everything from BPMN can be represented as XPDL, while the converse is not necessarily true. There are, however, a few vocal opponents who claim that XPDL can not be used to store BPMN.
OK. Both BPMN and XPDL are complex subjects. Continue reading
A business process is compsed of activities. Are those activities of a computer (an automating diagram) or are those activities of people (a facilitating diagram)? There are places for both kinds of diagrams in making organizations run better, and BPMN is a notation designed to support both as well. To support facilitation diagrams well, there is one key thing that is missing: a way to denote a “choice“. Continue reading
WfMC announced last week the BPMN Model Portability Validation test. This is a test that certifies that a BPM diagram, of a specified complexity, can be accurately exchanged between tools that have passed the test.
The test starts with a diagram that incorporates all the required BPMN elements. 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
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
Thinking Matters 