Absorbing the BIG Elephant. Part 1

Companies who are looking to start with BPM and searching for BPMS in order to help them, are most of the time finding the BIG Elephant on their way. Almost all BPMS Vendors are receiving the big question; how do we get started with BPMS and how will our organization absorb this? (The Big Elephant is not they nice looking animal call elephant – but the visual expression of a big project – for which you don’t know in the 1st view how you can oversee it).
If we want to eat our BIG Elephant, then we have to look how we can slice it in smaller absorbable pieces. So if we apply this to a BPM-Project, we will mainly have 3 big pieces or elements: People, Process and Information.
Let’s focus on people for now. This will raise the most important question: what’s the impact of this project on people and how will their daily work be affected by this?
You probably discovered already that the biggest problem on absorbing our piece called ‘People’ will raise a lot of issue and resistance from them. By nature people are not very open to changes and will try in some situations everything to avoid it. (Adoption failure is probably the number 1 reasons why a project fails at the end). So we have to focus on how we bring changes to them and show them the benefit. In some cultures and companies they spend a lot of time and effort, in order to learn people handling changes (Japans cultures are very focused on ‘Kaizen’ – a methodology to guide changes in an organization)
Somewhere in their mind a question is coming up: ‘What’s in it for me?’ or ‘Will I lose my job?’
Let’s look what an organization can do on this and make sure that they have the ‘People Slice of our Big Elephant’ under control.
· Build a strong visible business case
· Build a strong executive sponsorship
· Build a team of change agents, which are guiding and messaging the changes across the organization
· Create a clear vision and roadmap
· Show business and user benefits
· Communication, communication and once more communication! But it their own language.
· Empower people and share responsibility
· Start small, think big and scale fast!
· Improve continuously, based on lesions learned

Part 2: Processes ... coming soon

BPM ≠ Workflow

As I’m daily working with partners, customers and prospects around BPM and workflow, it seems for most of the people not to be clear what the difference is. Most people think BPM and Workflow are the same and therefore they are comparing apples with peers and lemons. Workflow has to be seen as a sub-set within a BPM, in other words a BPM Process is build of several workflows and is putting the whole management, control/monitoring on top of this. BPM is looking at the real business process, by example a sales order process, which is containing several workflows.
At the other side BPM is not about technology, or drawing just nice process diagrams or having a nice underlying SOA-Implementation, but it’s about driving Business Agility!
And this is where the problems are starting with purely workflow solutions. They are looking from a technical point of view, in sometime situation these solutions are nothing more than code compilers (converting nice graphics into code/assemblies). And are not allowing the business users to have more control over their business processes or allow them to dynamically change the execution path of the processes. BPM will allow you also to create a higher transparency over your processes, streamline them and of course optimize them.
The success of Microsoft MOSS/SharePoint and its underlying Windows Workflow Foundation is not making it easier for people. MOSS and WF are great for what they are made and are intended to be used for, but at the other hand it’s dangerous as it can make a wrong impression or understanding to the outside world.
Bad products don’t exist any more, as long you use them for what they are made for.
Ever saw a plane sailing or a vessel taking off from the run-way?

SOA for ICT-People, BPM for Business

I found today a great article from Prof. D. Deschoolmeester from the BPM Research Centre at Vlerick Management School (Gent – Belgium). Prof .D Deschoolmeester is stating also that BPM is not equal to SOA or vice versa, and that each aspect has to be signed on the right level and be used by the right audience. SOA is a great approach if you want to support the business, which are looking for dynamic and hybrid business solutions.
BPM has to enable the business again to take control over their processes and allow them in first phase to know how their business is running! Today a lot of the business processes are hiding inside monolithic and robust ERP-Solutions, and this is now creating a problem in this dynamic world. How can you align quickly the market situation or re-align a sales process, if it’s wrapped in a black box?

Some food to think about it!

Surving the technical SOA-World

I'm today at the SOA Symposium in Amsterdam and very surprised about the technical and high levels almost magical language they are using. For most of the people here SOA is a technical instrument only, which they want to keep far away from the business people. (Managers don’t understand IT)
However if I remember correctly IT is there to support the business, meaning without business you don't need IT stuff.
I fully agree with the mean vision of SOA, but it still believes that it should be aligned to the business need. In this very hectically and under high economic pressure situation, companies are looking for solutions that can quickly adapted to changing business or market needs.
SOA and BPM can be used to SUPPORT the business, DECREASE the total cost of IT development and platforms, but not to make this more complicate or keep the business people stupid.
Remember without business, nobody needs IT !

TO BPMN or NOT TO BPMN

As the interest into BPM is growing quickly these days, the new buzz-words and notification language is becoming hot topic. As the market is trying to push BPMN as business process modeling language, I’m wondering if this not again will lead towards to technical focused orientation of BPM.
The goal of real BPM is to enable business people, to have again control over their processes and not only from a documentation point of view, but also from real execution. Would it not be great that the designed business process model is directly understood by the BPM-engine and can be executed without any code translation? This would give all business users a real view of the business process status and will allow them to react if needed.
What will happen if we force people to use BPMN? Do we have to teach everybody this notation language? I believe this will scare of some people and make it more complicated than needed. Where is the pragmatically and no-nonsense approach?
BPM Notification should be understandable and readable by business users, and make sense to their environment or way of working. Everybody knows that one picture is saying more than one thousand words, so use self explanation notification.

Following Gartner BPM Summit from home side

I'm trying to follow the Gartner BPM Summit via my colleagues in the US and by reading several blogs about this BPM Event. (Like Sandy's Column or BPMS Watch From Bruce).

Quoting Bruce Blow:

Hayward and Janelle Hill both make a big deal of the idea that BPM has to make the process “explicit” but leave activities decoupled from their actual implementation. Explicit here is kind of a code word. I think it means fully defined at the logical level, i.e. almost executable. They also say that BPM must empower the business side (not IT) to make changes to the (executable) process model. They make this sound like reality, even though it is a vision (one that I support)… rarely fulfilled by actual products.

Well for the first time in my live I have the feeling to by at the right side of the table. The last few years I have spend a lot of time to learn more about BPM and the impact on the business. As I have also a technical ICT background (for more than 17 years; starting in IBM-world and moving afterwards to the Microsoft world). The last years it has become clear to me that the current way of handling projects by IT, was not about serving the business from a statically point, but sometimes from 'I known better then you' approach.

The economic pressure of the last years and the need to become a dynamic and flexible organization to serve their domination customers is becoming a nightmare for some IT-people and business owners.

And this brings me back to the quote of Bruce and the vision of Gartner. BPM seems today the only way to serve this dynamic and flexible business model. BPM should empower the business by having dynamic process models which can be adapted to the business needs, without leaning back on IT.

I’m glad to work for a BPM-Solution provider called Ascentn, via established over the last year a real BPM-solution which is serving this model for at least 100% ! As I’m involved in dealing with Partners and (potential) customers, I can clearly state that this vision is not yet fully spread. This brings us to the never ending discussion between the definition of workflows and BPM-Solutions, the coding solutions by IT or giving back control to the business.

However I have to admit that some visionars in some larger companies are seeing the light, and are looking for the nicely described solutions by Gartner.

Ascentn’s AgilePoint solutions is leveraging today the IT knowledge and expertise (about integration) towards the business users, and give them back control.

To be continued….

What is an architect ?

I discovery the questions at the following blog http://dotnet.org.za/arnon/default.aspx. Arno explained his thinking about the question.

My vision:

I always compare it to an architect who design a building. He will analyse the needs of his client. Propose a concept based on the needs, his experience, style/material which fit within budget and concept the client wants.My personally vision about a good architect:

1) Understand the customer and it's need
2) Looks ahead, creates a vision
3) Capable of translate business needs into a solution
4) Talks the business language, and understand the technical language
5) Design a solution which the business understands, (a business customers doesn't know anything about RUP, MSF, BPMN.....)
6) Architect has to be capable of guide the implementation team, project manager
7) Architect has to support his client and become's sometimes the devils advocate to his internal implementation team.

I think we should define clearly the type of architecture; a business architect, a solution architect, a technical architect....

Almost one year

It's almost any year since my last posts. But in the meantime we spent a lot of time to talk, guide and spread the BPM word.

For some BPM is the new hype and for others it's brings real value to their business needs and existing ICT assets. And for some other BPM is equal to workflow.

1 word 'BPM', different solutions, different understandings and visions, but only one which can leverage it's work with it: the business.

BPM is not only about the right BPMS solution, but it's a real mind-shift of thinking, try to understand how BPM can leverage your effort and having back control over your business.

BPM is about putting the business back in the drivers seat.

I created a task for myself, so I can share my vision and experience in my next posts on the real difference between BPM and Workflow. Stay tuned....

Time is flying...

Time is flying........

I should create a repeating task in my Outlook Calendar, as reminder to update my blog on regular time.

Time is flying.....

As you known we try to focus more on the business focus of projects instead of the pure technology. Step by step we are making progress in the never ending story. It even seems that Microsoft is going for the business solution track............ On their last seminar in Belgium they talked for the first time about solving business solutions! And not about selling product x or y! (Finally in the end you will probably need product to solve the problem or to reach a solution; but more and more people are seeing the difference in this approach)

The last months I worked on different Portal and Collaboration projects, some in corporation with the business and others with native IT people. At the end of a hectically work day it's always funny to look back and see the difference in the project approach and the results you reached.

I have to admit.........IT people...........they are funny............ (Sometimes they even forget that they support their internal clients! the business!)

Workflow modelling

Finally i found some great books related to proven techniques for identifying, modelling and redesign business processes. This time not the 24th description of ITIL or Prince2 methodoly, but a really pragmatic, no-nonsens and to-the-point description.
'Workflow modeling' written by Alec Sharp and Patrick McDermott is infact a book which should be read by every project manager, and functional analyst.It brings the two disciplines of management and ICT together, with a clear view and description to understand both worlds.
The book isn't about technology, but it deals with adaption of new methods and approaches for solving business problems. The different steps are very well explained and documented with practical samples.
So go to the Amazon website, and do yourself a favor !

ICT vs. Business

It’s always a surprise if you have a meeting with an ICT-guy around business topics. Going from ‘to the point’ to... how can I force my idea and protect my job.
I believe it’s the only department inside a company, which thinks they are more then example the bookkeeping or production department.

From what I know there are not much technology bubbles who create real business, inside a traditional company. Take a look on music stores, photo labs who are still struggling to survive today, despite the availability of all this technology.

We can do better from both sides… ICT should try to understand the business processes and the challenges of today, and use technology as support platform for the business. On the other side business should try to understand that’s it’s not always install and run.

Let’s pull all at the same side of the string !

Welcome to my first blog posting.

The meaning of this blog is to share my findings from both business and technology point of view, related to the integration of both worlds. Both worlds? Well despite the huge advantage technology brings, I'm still surprised about the complexity and difficulty we have to use the technology as an advantage to our business. (not only my business ….. but overall).I hope I can share some experience with this weblog and get some positive feedback, so we can all pull the same string………… having a better integration of business and technology…….. and this can not be reached by better software alone.