The Insider's Guide to Business and IT Agility
By Charles Rattray, Director of Professional Services, Tideway , 10/22/2008
Print this article
Email this article
Talk Back!
Write to Editor
According to a recent Forrester Research market update, Business Service Management (BSM) initiatives are up by over one-third year-on-year, as more companies develop strategic BSM deployment plans. This upswing in adoption may be attributable to the fact that BSM provides benefits for both business users and IT teams. But what are the critical success (and failure) factors when it comes to BSM -- and how can we leverage these lessons learnt to ensure future success?
A successful BSM blueprint starts by defining the purpose behind the initiative and establishing how to measure success against that objective. Typically, adopters of BSM want to ensure quality of service (driven by IT) and the quality of end-user experience (driven from the business side). Yet the largest hurdle to getting started is not that organizations confuse quality of service and the end-user experience; it's that organizations often focus on the end result rather than the journey to success itself.
While it's important to understand the desired outcome, companies need to start with something achievable. As with most corporate-wide initiatives, it is the success achieved during the BSM journey which dictates the success and acceptance of the end results. That journey need not be a long or complex one, and making BSM a success needn't be confined to a purely BSM-focused IT initiative. While the most successful BSM projects leverage existing people, process, and technology and seek to change the mindset of IT throughout the organization, they do so in a way that is driven by support and sponsorship from the lines of business.
As a first step, it's important for companies to realize that quality of service (QoS) and end-user experience are not one and the same. Quality of service is focused on availability, while end-user experience centers on whether the available service is useable in the context of how the business actually operates. Getting these definitions wrong can lead to the wrong kind of monitoring -- and the wrong kind of monitoring sets up any BSM initiative to fail from the outset.
Monitoring everything is costly, time consuming and doesn't necessarily provide the right information to the business or IT. For example, recognizing that a hard-drive has failed in a disk-subsystem is good to know. But knowing that the disk-drive is part of the subsystem and your data is safe because it is part of a cluster is better; you can then prioritize the repair accordingly and congratulate yourself on knowing those systems are still available. Better still, knowing that the users' website transaction experience has slowed dramatically because the back-end credit card payment service underpinned by the problem hard-drive failed over to a server node with an incorrect software configuration, is really what allows IT to be responsive.
1
ROUNDTABLE: Stretch Your Budget with smart SOA Governance-A Look at Successful Case Studies
ROUNDTABLE: Open Source Market Update
Insurance: Explore how SOA & BPM are driving down expenses and improving ROI
ebizQ is very interested in what you have to say. To contribute an article, an opinion, or to become a blogger, please contact Peter Schooff.
You need Adobe Flash Player 9 to view this widget.
June 3, 2009
One of the most compelling trends in the enterprise business technology space over the past year has been the emergence of cloud computing. In ebizQ’s upcoming Qcamp virtual un-conference, leading industry experts and practitioners will explore the role of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and business process management (BPM) in supporting cloud-computing initiatives. Additionally, the new skills that developers and IT managers need for successful cloud development will be discussed.Register
Date: Aug 26, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM
ET- (16:00 GMT)
Date: Sep 30, 2009
Time: 12:00 PM
ET- (16:00 GMT)
Date:Aug 26, 2009
Time:12:00 PM
ET- (16:00 GMT)
Date:Sep 30, 2009
Time:12:00 PM
ET- (16:00 GMT)
Reacting to events to minimize risk, predicting events to capitalize on opportunities and analyzing events to improve future performance; and doing...
Download Now
In part two of Joe McKendrick's recent podcast with Miko Matsumura, chief strategist for Software AG, they talk about how SOA and IT systems need to change and grow and adapt with the organization around it.
Listen Now
Phil Wainewright interviews David Vap, VP of products at RightNow Technologies, and finds out how sharing best practices can help businesses understand how best to engage with online communities.
Listen Now
Scott Hebner, Vice President of Marketing and Strategy for IBM Rational, discusses a topic on the top of every company's mind today: getting the most from IT investments.
Listen Now
In BI, this tough economy and the increasing role of Web 2.0 and MDM are certainly topics on people's minds today. WiseAnalytics' Lyndsay Wise addresses each of them in this informative podcast.
Listen Now
Deepak Singh, President and CTO of Adeptia, joins ebizQ's Dennis Byron in a podcast that gets its hand around the trend of industry-specific BPM.
Listen NowFrom Dennis Byron: For BPM to fit at the top of the stack, it can't merely support workflow or integration. It needs to integrate the BI aspects of the stack, too. Learn More
In the insurance industry, companies have accepted that systems, strategies and data all developed in silos are making it difficult for them to grow and adjust to today’s market demands. The obstacles imposed by siloed approaches are painfully obvious to companies as they try to gain a better understanding of their customers and meet the growing constraints imposed by compliance and regulatory requirements. Leveraging industry standards with full data integration is one was to tackle this challenge. Learn More
From Dennis Byron: Is it better to choose one strain of BPM over another? The answer is unique to your organization. Learn More
Can decision management really deliver costs savings, agility and happy customers on a consistent basis? Learn More
From Dennis Byron: BPM products optimized for case management might be the products that bridge the extremes in my view of the BPM spectrum. Learn More
Integrating BPM and CEP gives you intelligent business processes that can react to rapidly changing business conditions with continuous visibility. Learn More
Insurers need to think about creating "true linkage," which means linking business strategy to process to IT investments and thereby setting the foundation for true change. Learn More
To be effective, business intelligence technology must work behind the scenes to deliver relevant information when, where, and how it's needed. Learn More
A lot of people are talking about Enterprise 2.0 as being the business application of Web 2.0 technology. However, there's still some debate on exactly what this technology entails, how it applies to today's business models, and which components bring true value. Some use the term Enterprise 2.0 exclusively to describe the use of social networking technologies in the enterprise, while others use it to describe a web economy platform, or the technological framework behind such a platform. Still others say that Enterprise 2.0 is all of these things. Learn More
Smart event processing can help your company run smarter and faster. This comprehensive guide helps you research the basics of complex event processing (CEP) and learn how to get started on the right foot with your CEP project using EDA, RFID, SOA, SCADA and other relevant technologies. Learn More
To Michael: To select what has to be improved (e.g. automated), a...
Hi Johan,
thank you for such prompt response.
I...
Phil,
It appears that Google is looking at the world...
I believe work has been done in this area privately for some time....
I wonder if BPM has become more popular because many solutions...
We are looking for a FileNET admin/developer in Houston, TX. The...
As we see more companies consider the cloud we should be...
Scott,
I agree that process management is good way for...
|
|
|
|
