BP Community

2007 could have been better…

For me, last year started full of hope and promise that companies where finally beginning to “get it”. Sadly as the year progressed that hope and expectation started to flag and by the end, it was fair thee well gone.

And yet as we move into 2008 I feel more positive than ever. For the last couple of years business architecture has been a choice to make or not make. More often than not the choice was not to bother for a whole host of reasons; too busy with existing programmes, no more bau capacity, cynicism due to earlier attempts and simple lack of budget. I think the most frustrating reason that I heard in 2007 was “we are not ready for that sort of thing yet”.

Not ready for that sort of thing? What sort of thing do people perceive business architecture to be? At its most basic level business architecture is about understanding your business from a customer perspective. Its not about understanding how all your systems hang together and which routes data is flowing through, nor is it about understanding how a plethora of metrics relate to something or other. It’s about discovering how you truly interact with the most important people in the world – your customers. Why would anybody not be ready for that sort of thing?

In almost every vision statement that exists you will see there will be something in there along the lines of “the number one provider of…” or “the best in class”. How many vision statements exist that do not rely on both your staff and your customers to help deliver it? Not that many – and if they do – then it’s a company you do not want to own any stock in.

So customers are important – in fact they are one of the most important parts of your business. How many companies view the customer as part of their business? Possibly quite a lot – for those that do, have you asked your middle managers if the customer is part of their business? Chances are they are not. They will mention costs, products, IT systems, targets, staff, outputs, MI and a whole host of other detritus but not many will mention the customer – try it, it’s an enlightening and sometimes frightening experience.

All of these elements are important but they are only important when viewed in relation to the customer. Costs could be kept to a minimum but if they result in driving all your customers away where’s the benefit? Products could have phenomenal margins but if no one wants them why bother? Your IT systems could all be clearly linked in a pristine service orientated architecture but if it’s an alien experience for your staff and customers is it really adding value? Yet some people still hold these things higher than the customer.

So what does 2008 hold?

When you take all of the above into consideration why would I feel more positive than the start of 2008? I suppose it comes down to the belief that it’s no longer a choice for a business – it has become a necessity. Prior to the end of 2007 customers had an almost insatiable desire to spend money and with massive rises in house prices combined with free and easy lending their desire was fed. That world has gone. House prices are stagnating at best and on the edge of collapsing at worst. Credit is going to be harder to acquire and more expensive. So those businesses that do not truly understood how they serve their customers are going to be in trouble. They will need to become world class in its truest sense; they will need to be capable of not only attracting customers but keeping them. That is only going to be achievable through understanding your customers and truly managing their expectations while they are with you.

To gain that knowledge and understanding you are going to need your own business architecture.

A couple of years ago we praised Gartner for their innovation in introducing a competent series under the innovative leadership of Michael Melonovsky and Jim Sinur. The conference circuit needed to up its game and make sure our experience as delegates and participants produced content with freshness. Well the bar has been lifted again and there’s a new name in town that you will would do well to experience and track. Gartners ground breaking has reverted to the old techno-babble following this summer’s departure of Melenovsky and Sinur and the ‘usual suspects’ for conferences have only improved slightly. Enter stage right GDS International (http://www.gdsinternational.com) - not necessarily a name we are all familiar with. Our first experience with them was in Frankfurt, Germany last year at the C-Level conference and since then they have developed a conference series of the very best pedigree. In Evian, France the FST European Event brought together the leaders of European Financial Services companies around an agenda of business transformation.

Simply put this was the best conference I have presented and attended - and boy do I see a lot of conferences on every continent!If you want a good conference recommendation track these guys as they lift the bar and manage our expectations to a new high.

See the Events page for our immediate recommendations for your consideration.

from the Ben Graham Corporation

November 2007View original

Capturing Reality: Collecting the Facts

In two previous papers, we outlined the elements involved in setting up a process improvement project and getting the word out with a public announcement. With everyone on board, it’s time to get into the trenches.Fact gathering is an integral part of understanding reality and preparing a good process map. Yet, it is often dismissed or given cursory attention as superficial process maps are created by an individual or group of people some distance away from the work…and thereby some distance away from reality. If you want your process maps to reflect reality, you must go to the work and see it happen…This is the third in a series of papers dealing with the up-front work in process improvement projects. Read the rest of this entry »

Every Customer Interaction is a Moment of Truth (MOT). Whether it’s person to person, person to system, system to person, system to system or person to product they are all Causes of Work.

That work in dealing with MOT’s creates organizational internal handoffs, what we call Breakpoints. Places where things can and do go wrong and again we see them happening between people, systems and services all the time.All our internal communications are in fact Breakpoints. For instance how many emails do you receive from colleagues and business partners daily?

Read the rest of this entry »

How to avoid losing your head over an unforeseen disaster?

Why is it that business and personal disasters arise from the most obvious causes that get ignored?

Read more if:

• You want to avoid the most obvious causes of business disasters
• You want to know what you should be doing in your personal life that somehow you’ve not yet got around to

Read the rest of this entry »

Making it easy for average performers to adopt winning behaviours

A management revolution is boosting the achievements of average performers and facilitating the flow of work and opportunities around the globe. Pioneers are building critical success factors into the processes for key activities and adopting cost effective ways of helping people to emulate the winning ways of high performing superstars. Workgroup productivity and corporate performance are being transformed to deliver both commercial success for organisations and personal satisfaction for individuals.

Have you ever wondered why some people and groups are so much more effective than others at undertaking equivalent tasks in similar circumstances? In many sectors leading competitors have similar offerings, adopt prevailing technologies and systems, recruit from the major business schools, fall for current management fads and employ the same professional firms. Yet examine a particular area of operation and huge variations of performance are evident. Why is this? Do certain critical success factors explain the differences? What is it that high performers do differently?

Read the rest of this entry »

As we scurry about in our business ventures/adventures, fixing all of the broken-down structures and systems left over from “them” (the nebulous shadow-folk that created all THIS MESS), are we aware that we – you and me – may actually be Causes of Work that are unconsciously erecting barriers to our own goals?

No way Terry. We’re fixing things, unraveling the mess. We’re not causing work we are increasing performance and optimizing processes. We’re reducing work, not causing it!

But are you so sure?
Read the rest of this entry »

Or beware consultants with no clothes

By John Corr

It must be one my personal business nightmares, if you can imagine having just flown to New York to meet a new client and the airline has lost all your clothes! So what can one learn from such events about delivering great customer service experiences?

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

To give you the background, I’d just been to California and had arranged to meet the COO of a potential great new client in New York on my way back home to England. I’d visited them a few weeks before and I’d felt as though I’d wandered onto the set of “The Devil Wears Prada” (or should that be “Ugly Betty”?). So not wanting to be left too far behind the “New York Chic look” of my hosts, I’d gone out and purchased the very best of shirts & ties that London has to offer (OK anyone from Milan is allowed a note of scepticism at this point) combined with my new Italian suit & cuff links, I knew I’d look the part.

Read the rest of this entry »

BPM is starting to look as though it sucks. Now what on earth could lead me to such a conclusion?

First, you need to take a look at the product market and the associated messages. At the recent Gartner BPM event in London (March 07), I took some time to visit all the “BPM” vendors to see what was happening and to assess how the product side is evolving. On the face of it, it all looks very encouraging. There are some fantastic looking, seemingly well engineered, products that appear to do everything one would expect from a good, robust, Process Support System.

Read the rest of this entry »

It has been almost five years since the Third Wave of BPM struck the business process community. Although the scripture “Business Process Management: The Third Wave” by Howard Smith and Peter Fingar was not such the breaker the authors presumably expected, it stirred up a tide that soaked the feet of infrastructure vendors in cold water.

Smith and Fingar departed from the prevailing notion that business processes were sequential chains of activities. Instead, they embraced the idea that end-to-end business processes execute as networks of processes and defined a business process as “the complete and dynamically coordinated set of collaborative and transactional activities that deliver value to customers”.
Read the rest of this entry »

There are many myths and misunderstandings surrounding the market sector which is know as Business Process Management. One of the major misunderstandings normally comes to light during discussions regarding standards. Whenever I speak to anyone on the subject it soon becomes clear that the standards bodies have simply failed to get the message across.

In 2003 there were more than 10 recognized groups defining standards for BPM related activities, 7 of these bodies were working on modelling definitions so it’s no wonder that the whole picture got very confused. Fortunately there has been a lot of “drop off” and consolidation to a point where there are, currently, only 3 key standards to really take notice:
Read the rest of this entry »

Forging mutually beneficial relationships is the key to business and social success according to Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas, author of ‘Winning Companies; Winning People’. Speaking at the 17th World Congress on Total Quality in Kolkata , India he called for greater engagement with stakeholders in order to reconcile individual and collective interests and achieve both commercial success and personal fulfilment.

The Professor’s research has identified critical success factors and what high performers or ‘winners’ do differently in areas such as winning business and building relationships. According to Coulson-Thomas, “Losers are essentially selfish, reluctant to share and would prefer to operate alone. They keep to themselves in an attempt to avoid commitments and becoming entangled in relationships with others.”
Read the rest of this entry »

As posted on ebizQ

Many of us involved in the field of Workflow Automation and Business Process Management (BPM) have argued long and hard about where these two technologies overlap, where they are different which mathematical models to use, which standards are applicable to which part of the technology stack and all that associated puff.

Well these arguments and discussions are over; the demarcation lines have been drawn; the road ahead is clear.

The fact that Business Process Management has its roots in Workflow technology is well known - many of today’s leading products are, in fact, evolutions of the original forms processing packages. So there is no longer a need to debate what is now a mute point.
Read the rest of this entry »

The differing approaches of winners and losers
A management revolution is boosting the achievements of average performers and facilitating the flow of work and opportunities around the globe. Pioneers are building critical success factors into the processes for key activities and adopting cost effective ways of helping people to emulate the winning ways of high performing superstars. Workgroup productivity and corporate performance are being transformed to deliver both commercial success for organisations and personal satisfaction for individuals.
Read the rest of this entry »

The winning business process is a key one for most companies and professional firms. Deciding which new business opportunities to pursue is critical to competitive bidding success.

Many businesses devote a lot of effort to opportunities they have little chance of winning. They waste a great deal of time ‘having their brains picked’ and ‘making up the numbers’ for buyers who are required by ‘purchasing guidelines’ or ‘standing orders’ to invite so many suppliers to bid for contracts of a certain size or type. Whether or not they are happy with an incumbent provider they are compelled to obtain other quotes.
Read the rest of this entry »

Introduction

It is a little known fact that the origins of the technology surrounding Business Process Management stems from the late 1980s and early 1990s in a market sector known as Workflow Automation. Most vendors of Workflow tools (and many of them are now leading exponents of BPM) used the terms workflow and process interchangeably. Indeed, the first documented use of the term Business Process Management is attributed to a 1993 article by Frank Leymann and Wolfgang Altenhuber(1) of IBM - but it didn’t enter the language of analysts and vendors until 2000 - and when it did, it became an instant “hit”.

Why?
Read the rest of this entry »

OK – most of us would settle for a millionaire (whether pounds, euros or dollars!). This issue’s focus is on unleashing the innovative genius amongst us all to accomplish all of those things we’d love to do but know we can’t.

Read more if:

- You want to create a profitable business in a sector making losses

- You want to build a billion-dollar business from scratch…. Or even a million dollar one!

- You’ve always wanted to start something new and great but those nagging doubts at the back of your mind are holding you back
Read the rest of this entry »

From the Central Valley Business Times

If you thought the problem of losing American jobs to cheap labor overseas was over, brace yourself for even worse times to come, says business expert Peter Fingar of Tampa, Fla.

“The world is tilted in favor of a fierce new breed of competitors,” says Mr. Fingar, author of the book, “Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation.”

From the editor: Don’t miss the interview at the bottom of the article, where Peter speaks about some of the issues covered in Extreme Competition.
Read the rest of this entry »

Are you still afraid of the procrastination “Bogey Man”?

Small children are often afraid of the “bogey man” that fills them with terror and stops them from getting off to sleep. We tell them it’s ridiculous, there’s no such thing, and he can’t possibly be in the wardrobe or hiding under the bed. We even open up wardrobe and look under the bed with them – and nonetheless they tell us the “bogey man” is still there somewhere still stopping them from getting off to sleep.

Read more if:
* You know what you want to do, but you just can’t get started
* You’re afraid that you won’t be successful, so why bother?
* You want to win on penalty shoot-outs – and other mission critical goals
Read the rest of this entry »

‘You are what you eat’ is a slogan of our time. The corporate equivalent could arguably be ‘you are what you buy’. While over indulgent eating can lead to obesity, flabby buying can drain a company’s coffers and impair its performance.

The cash generated by a business is the difference between payments into and out of corporate bank accounts. Companies need to be entrepreneurial when buying from their suppliers as well as entrepreneurial when generating revenues from their customers.
Read the rest of this entry »

Forward by Terry Schurter

Jon Pyke has a sharp mind - and it never stops running. Our conversations often cover a multitude of sins with much insight into how the BPM market is evolving, what is new and novel, what opportunties are being missed, and where the “smoke screens” are coming from for those who are too busy blowing it to actually pur real BPM technology in place. This article on ComputerWeekly presents some insights from Jon on how these activities are playing out in technology market.

Business process management (BPM) is still a young area, with new products and technologies.
Read the rest of this entry »

For many Peter Fingar is the new Peter Drucker. His insights and commitment to the emerging new world order born of globalization, commoditization and customer power are testimony to a guy who actively works, researches and writes on the seismic shifts underway in the business world.

This trip report, penned after Peter’s recent keynote at Gartners event in Nashville suggests that not everyone is ‘getting It’. On the other hand those who do are already streets ahead.

My Taxi Drivers Know More Than My Neighbors - A Trip Report
by Peter Fingar

I’ve written a lot lately about the tectonic plates shifting right under our economic feet since China, India and the former Soviet Union opened up to capitalism. Quite frankly, some of the neighbors along my daily walk route give me that blank stare when I talk about such affairs. They just kind of think, “What have those people way over there got to do with me?”
Read the rest of this entry »

All the World is a Project

In a wired world, the possibilities for assembling, then disbanding, geographically scattered project teams are almost endless.A growing number of companies are relying on electronically-connected virtual project teams to get things done. In time, the primary work unit in the enterprise is likely to be ‘the project’, not the function performed somewhere in the Org Chart. Virtual, matrixed teams, composed of diverse competencies, knowledge and capabilities, with traditional hierarchical structures replaced by multi-company teams, will be assembled as needed, sometimes ‘on the fly’. Such dynamically formed teams will tackle specific projects to pursue specific opportunities and to counter specific threats in the brave new world of total global competition.

In this new scenario, and to paraphrase Shakespeare, “All the world’s a project. And all the men and systems merely play their roles. They have their exits and their entrances.”

Indeed, the ability to model and implement ‘roles’ digitally is the key to next-generation collaboration support technologies.

‘Connect and collaborate’ is the future for forming high performance project teams, but it’s not all that easy, and a new generation of collaboration tools will be needed.
Link to the the full article on bpm.com

First of all – a very happy New Year.

This issue’s focus is on decision-making. Specifically how can we make better decisions and see them through. Sometimes we make great decisions, sometimes they are lousy; sometimes we really struggle to come to a decision. And when we make a decision, how comes some we can see through with ease (“yes – I’ll have another glass of wine”) and others we really struggle with (“do I really want to go out for a run in that rain?”).

Read more if:

- Your struggling to keep your personal resolutions

- The pace of decision-making is holding your business back

- You would like to have your most successful year yet
Read the rest of this entry »

And the Emergence of Human Interaction Management Systems

In 2003, the infamous article, “IT Doesn’t Matter,” splashed onto the pages of the Harvard Business Review, and subsequently got used in boardrooms across America as ammo for deep IT budget cuts. Even though General Electric’s CEO, Jeff Immelt, called the article “stupid” the great IT backlash had begun – IT spending flip flopped from the late 1990s’ stupendous overspend, which was driven by the dot-com frenzy, to the current under spend, driven by IT-wary business executives. The tabloid-like article set forth the following New Rules for IT management: “Spend less; follow, don’t lead; and focus on vulnerabilities, not opportunities.”

In the May 12, 2003 issue of ComputerWorld, the author reasserted one of his fundamental ideas when he said, “Companies have increasingly bought into the assumption that IT is a strategic resource. As a result, they have brought in CIOs who are conceptual, strategic thinkers about IT. I think there’s less of a need for those types of individuals.”[1]

It’s time now for another IT flip flop, and here’s why:
Read the rest of this entry »