Most companies worry about what competitors are doing, how the economy is doing, what competitors are up to, and where interest rates are headed. (Which reminds me of the wag who said he knew exactly how interests would behave in the future. “Interest rates will rise, or they will fall, unless, of course, they stay flat!”)

But few companies worry about what they know and what they don’t know about their own business operations. They are woefully equipped to innovate, respond to competitive threats, or adapt to changing conditions. Consider that each of these situations begins with a mad scramble to figure out where the business stands. The managers are asking themselves, “What does my business process look like? Who performs in what roles? Where are the operations policies? Who is following them, and who isn’t? How do our business metrics look like?” I have never seen any exception to this, not one situation where the affected manager said, “Here is the latest and greatest repository of our corporate knowledge. It is completely up-to-date. Let us consult it before responding to the change.” It’s not that the managers don’t realize the importance of such self-knowledge, but that it comes with a huge price tag—in time, if not in money; but then, time is money.

Years ago, I helped a soap manufacturer analyze their business to see what their most profitable brands were. It turned out that rather than any specific soap line, a byproduct of the soap manufacturing process called oxalic acid (a key reagent in many industrial chemical reactions), was the most profitable one. So, this soap industrialist could have taken the process part way and stopped when oxalic acid was created, and turned completely profitable. (They didn’t choose that; instead, they found out that their company was sitting on prime real estate that could be more profitable as a shopping mall. Besides, shopping malls smell better than a soap factory, so that’s what they did).

The point of this story is that BPM has interesting byproducts that you wouldn’t think are worth much. You start off a BPM project to reduce cycle time for order processing, only to discover that linking ordering processing and shipping business rules to the process steps turned out to be the best thing since sliced bread. BPM, it turns out, is a perfect vehicle to capture and maintain process knowledge. Which reminds of the recent discussion about BPM, ECM, and security in posts by Ismael Ghalimi and James McGovern.

If BPM takes on management of process knowledge, as I think it should, what’s left for ECM? Will ECM morph into the middleware for management of transactional documents? After all, it seems pretty evident by now that we will never be a paperless society. Besides, a lot of enterprise content will be on PostIt notes (to the utter delight of 3M). So, if we leave transactional documents for ECM and Document Management, then Knowledge Management can be carved out for BPM. The interesting thing is, BPM doesn’t even break into a sweat while dealing with knowledge management. It is an effortless (almost, but not quite) byproduct of process modeling and process management.

Would that knowing oneself (in the spiritual sense) was similarly a byproduct of some fun activity (like watching Monday night football).

Posted by kirankg in BPM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the Tatars of the East were a ferocious people. They were very effective at raiding and plundering. Their most remarkable aspect was their speed of execution. They copied Caesar’s ‘Veni, vidi, vici’ mantra, but conveniently omitted the ‘vidi.’ Not for them the survey of their opponents or any attempt at understanding them. Instead, they came as a flood and departed, seemingly in one breath, leaving behind total destruction. They nipped at the edges of Genghis Khan’s empire so persistently that he was determined to either exterminate them or discipline them. Fortunately for both parties and unfortunately for his enemies, he managed to discipline them by the simple expedient of killing any Tatar who was taller than the axle of one of his desert carts (James Michener, Poland).

Every time I talk to both IT and business users, listening to their description of the mess of applications, I am reminded of the Tatars. Like each set of functional applications may be very effective, much like a small band of Tatars. But best of breed solutions do not make up a coherent enterprise architecture, just as the Tatars never won any major wars or leave any lasting legacy behind them. It took a Genghis Khan to control them, and orchestrate them into his campaigns. Before you start wondering if you should pull the plug on applications that don’t conform to the axle wheel of your architecture stack, consider how to achieve the same positive outcome—discipline—without resorting to catastrophic measures.

Firstly, realize that discipline need not be boring or bureaucratic. Secondly, discipline need not add overhead; in fact, properly cultivated, discipline can increase speed of execution. Thirdly, discipline can become part of corporate culture, a habit, a way of doing business. It means picking an investment strategy and sticking to it, without second-guessing it or letting your emotions upset it. It means growing your company in a responsible way (i.e., paying attention to risk). It means complying with the highest standards of business ethics. It means methodically ticking off the pre-flight checklist before takeoff without relying on memory, even though you have done it a thousand times before.

To institutionalize discipline, a governance process is essential. This is the umbrella process that ensures all other project methodologies, ways of doing business, operational mechanisms, etc. comply with best practices, ethical guidelines, and regulation. In the context of process management and its cousin, SOA, governance implies, among other things, the following:
• Processes & services are documented correctly and completely
• Documentation is maintained and kept current
• Projects reuse processes and services
• Implementations take into account the full end-to-end process, and not just the sub-process that is in scope for the project
• There are policies for submitting processes and services into the repository, and that these policies are followed
• Processes that are executing are monitored against key performance indicators, and that proper alerts and notifications are in place

This is not an exhaustive treatment of governance, of course. But the key is that companies cannot avoid the consequences of non-governance. They will end up paying the piper sometime. But companies do have option of making governance part of their corporate culture. To do so, top executives must be ready to lead the change in mindset. At some point, they must be prepared to pay for solutions that are comprehensive and address the various aspects of governance.

If you spot a copy of the Management Secrets of Genghis Khan floating about your CEO’s office, quietly substitute it with the Power of Process.

Posted by kirankg in BPM • SOA | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I discovered Lawrence Sanders when I read his murder-mystery, First Deadly Sin, as an impressionable teenager. His writing is brilliant, the characterization is remarkable, and the plot is well orchestrated. The book was subsequently made into a unmemorable movie, with a completely mis-cast Frank Sinatra playing the detective Edward X. Delaney. Sanders went on to write more murder mysteries in the Deadly Sin series. He would have gone down in history as an excellent writer if he had stopped with this. But he was just getting started. He went on to write a chilling science fiction novel, The Tomorrow File. Then he started on his famous Commandment series. (Funnily enough, I found several books in this series displayed on the “Religion” table at a book fair; I warn you, don’t present any of Sanders’ books to minors!)

Sanders also wrote a psycho thriller (The Case of Lucy Bending), and in his final years, his McNally series. This is not all. I haven’t covered his Wolf Lannihan stories and a bunch of other writings. What is remarkable is that each of these genres has a different writing style; the mood is different (ranging from mystery-noir to light-hearted, flippant protagonists, to an orthogonally different dystopian sci fi); the vocabulary is different. It’s as if he had a multiple personality disorder, except in his case, it shouldn't be called a disorder.

BPM is a bit like that. It is imbued (as opposed to afflicted) with multiple facets. It’s a technology…no, it’s a form of enterprise architecture…no, it’s a set of practices…no, it’s a management philosophy…wait, it’s all of the above! BPM pervades the entire business. (Proof: The business of companies is business. Companies carry out business through business processes. Business processes are, by definition, the domain of Business Process Management. BPM, therefore, covers everything that a company does. Q.E.D.)

I do not believe that BPM is a piece of technology alone. I do not believe that BPM can be truly effective without technology. Like Sanders, BPM is versatile. Unlike Sander’s books, it is rated ‘G’ so that it is safe for ‘minors’ (i.e., those who are just dipping their feet into BPM and those who are not experts in leading-edge technologies).

I am thrilled to be blogging for ebizQ. Through this medium, I hope to share with the world at large my thoughts about this vast ocean. About the power of BPM.

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Guest post from Elizabeth Book, ebizQ's editor-in-chief:

This week, we bid farewell to David Ogren, the originator of BPM-Blog, and we welcome Kiran Garimella, who will be "BPM-blogging" in the same location.

David, a BPM thought leader who has hung his hat with several enterprise technology vendors; with Sun, with Fuego, and most recently with BEA after its acquisition of Fuego, has decided to take a break from blogging. We very much look forward to hearing more of him and from him in the future. For posterity, we want to leave David's blogging archives in place.

But starting today, we welcome Kiran Garimella, a VP of webMethods, as a new blogger on ebizQ. Kiran has a flair for the dramatic, having recently published a novel about BPM, called The Power of Process: Unleashing the Source of Competitive Advantage.

You will see what I mean about a flair for the dramatic when you read Kiran's first entry in BPM-Blog.

Happy reading!

Posted by elizabeth in BPM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been blogging for roughly two and half years (counting both my Sun blog and BPM Blog). It's been great in a lot of ways. But blogging while keeping up the pace of working in a startup, and simultaneously keeping the confidentiality of the customers I've been working with, has been a challenge. So, as you've noticed, I haven't been blogging regularly.

So, I'm going to take a vacation from blogging. I'm retiring BPM Blog. Thanks to all of the readers over all the years. Blogging has made reality out of the "everyone is a publisher" vision of the internet.

Thanks again for reading.

David

Posted by davidogren in Personal | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)