My dearest

We have been together for some years now.

You are never a hands length away from me.
I’m always conscious about your whereabouts.

Without you – a part of me is missing.

Its funny how the simple things in life mystify you..

Your ability to get the hang of even the most simple ways to use the internet
- is surprisingly limited. And that truly is an understatement.

Yes, you are not as attractive as before. Ageing has taken a toll on you.

But I still find you useful, and I haven’t strayed off to prettier models.
You wake me up on time, help me with my emails and keep me in contact with the world.

So what can I say to you, my dearest Blackberry, on this valentines day.

I can truly admit that you are a piece of @#**!#!! !**!#@#*!! *@#*?#!!
And may you *@#!?!#* !#**@* !*@#!?!#!!

Yours,
Adam

On BPM Products – Scott Francis

If you’ve owned a BPM product for more than a year and you’re still looking at getting process #1 deployed, I’d recommend two things:
1. See about getting some professional help from a boutique consultancy focused on project success. If you’re already working with one, consider a new one.
2. If that doesn’t get you on the path to more productivity and better use of your product, consider a different BPM platform. You might have picked the wrong one.

On BPM and Mobile – Sid Nazareth

Frankly, for an industry dedicated to process improvement and eliminating inefficiencies the lack of Mobile BPM options was embarrassing.

On BPM and Mobile – Alan Trefler

..people get it that there is a big difference from having a general purpose downloadable BPM app (that does what exactly??), and a full model-driven environment that makes mobile a first class citizen

On BPM and Tasks Masters – John Reynolds

So there’s our challenge as Tool builders – Task Masters need tools to increase their Visibility into Things That Matter Now. It’s fairly easy to figure out all the information that might matter, but it’s not so easy to figure what matters now.

On On Empowering Employees and Processes – Max Pucher

Empowering employees for processes means to make them enjoy what they do by giving them what they need: autonomy, targets, objectives, expected outcomes, guidance, social interaction, transparency, and security. How could a flowchart without content give this to them?

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) isn’t a topic that gets discussed much in the BPM community.

This might be due to lack of implementations at BPO customers, or that large BPO companies usually have their own software solutions and internal process teams.
It might be due to regional differences (we hear a lot of BPO being used in India, Asia and South America – but little in USA and Europe).
But it’s probably down to the snub we give anyone that dares uses the phrase “business process” in their industry description, without referring to BPM (…how dare they…)

There is not a lot of information on BPM and BPO.
Is the lack of information and interest because BPM vendors have not targeted BPOs, or something else.

Sure, BPO probably belongs to the CRM sector. They fit well together.
But it actually makes good business sense for BPOs to look for BPM platforms.

Lack of transparency and communication are BPO’s biggest risks.
Yes, we can run and manage business processes, but instead of putting an emphasis on the operational functionality, I’d actually put an emphasis on management dash-boarding.
The ability to show management that the operations in the BPO are running smoothly, on time, and with KPIs – is crucial.
The dashboards actually lower management worry, lower operational risk, and prove that the BPO is running smoothly.

It is typical in the BPO industry to have hundreds of very similar customers.
The ability to improve business processes would prove to be more effective here than in a standard BPM implementation.

So why are BPO and BPM not talking to each other?

I do not like it, said the Queen.
One does not like it one bit, she said angrily, pacing up and down the chamber floor.

But, Your Majesty… it is the peoples’ request, answered the Prime Minister.
Peoples’ request indeed, retorted the Queen. You know I don’t like flying!

But, Your Highness… it comes with the job, fumbled the Prime Minister.

The Queen wasn’t impressed. Comes with the job indeed!, she said, annoyed.
No one told me anything about flying. One was happy to be just Queen of England, but oh no, someone decided one needed to the Queen of all the British Empire.
Why couldn’t they have a Queen for each country? Why can’t one delegate her tasks?

It’s called Outsourcing, Ma’am. It was agreed that it was in everybody’s best interests to have all monarchy processes done in the back office in London.
Outsourcing! Fiddlesticks. What is it good for? she grumbled.

Your Majesty… explained the Prime Minister, Outsourcing enables us to contract all of the operations and responsibilities of specific business functions to a third-party service provider. In this case – You.

BPO contributes to the empire’s flexibility and enables the colonies to focus on their core competencies, without being burdened by the demands of bureaucratic restraints.The public are herewith released from performing non-core or administrative processes and can invest more time and energy in building the empire’s core businesses.

Yes, Yes.. said the queen, but why does one need to fly out to these regions?
One does not like flying. Cannot one’s duties be completed from here?
Communication is key, answered the Prime Minister calmly.

For hours the prime minister explained and explained the merits of outsourcing.

As the clock struck four, the royal butler entered with the evening tea.
Will that be all Maa’m, asked the butler quietly.

Good evening Edward, replied the Queen. An interesting evening I must say. The prime minister was explaining the reasons for outsourcing, and due to that, the reasons why one will need to fly abroad for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

It was quite an interesting evening, she smiled…

The prime minister smiled as well. Glad to be of service your majesty, he said. I will bid you a good evening. The prime minister bowed and collected his hat.

Edward, said the Queen.
Yes Ma’am.

Kindly escort the prime minister to the door and ask him to tell you about outsourcing.
Yes Ma’am.

And Edward, said the Queen quietly.
Yes Ma’am.

Please remove the prime minister’s head on the way out…

On BPM and Expectations – Scott Cleveland

A large part of a BPM sale includes managing expectations. If their expectations [vision] for a solution are not possible, you will not have a successful implementation. During early discussions about BPM, I ask the prospect for their vision of a solution. We would work from there to talk about what is possible and what is not. At some point, the prospect will have altered their vision of a solution to something they are comfortable with and can actually be delivered.

On Process Mining – Anne Rozinat

It is one of the big advantages that process mining does not depend on specific automation technology or specific systems. It is a source system-agnostic technology, precisely because it is centered around the process-oriented mental model explained above.

On Process Mining – Max J. Pucher

The problem is not about identifying processes but that they simply can’t be supported by flow-diagrams! In its current form PM tries to solve a problem that isn’t there in the real world but was created by BPM. Process Mining tries to find stable flows where there aren’t any but that does not mean that analyzing people interactions is useless.

On BPM and ACM – John R. D’Entremont

If I were to do it over, I would probably simply ignore the BPM comparison, simply focus on those organization that depend upon innovation and creativity, and show how ACM can support that work, without any comparison with BPM. It seems that the knowledge work support, and routine work support, are distinct problem that can be handled by different support organizations.

On BPM, BPMN and Interoperabilty – Marco Brambilla

If you have been extensively using software modeling tools, you have probably experienced the awful situation where you want to move models from one tool to the other, but this ends up not being possible. Why? Because you are using different languages? Not at all: even just moving a “standard” model from a modeler to another is a pain.

On Process Platforms – Mike Gammage

Process platforms are the future. There’s still C-Level resistance in some organizations – mostly because both process tools and process platforms start with a visualization of process as boxes and lines. So, at first glance, they are both ‘just process drawing tools’. Yawn…

On Process Application Maintainability – Neil Ward-Dutton

..vendors prefer to focus on sexy things like support for mobile devices, integration with social collaboration capabilities, cloud-based deployments and so on. When we examine BPM technology offerings in our detailed assessment reports, though, the architecture and philosophy of the of the toolset and platform in relation to application maintainability is one of the main things we dig into.

On Process and People – Jon Ryder

Process may be well conceived, designed and built and the technology may well be great, but the one factor I hear very little mention of in all the BPM ‘chatter’, is the word PEOPLE. I would strongly suggest that the absolute key to a BPM project’s success is understanding, appreciating and considering the very people involved in the process.

On Process and Organizational Culture – Michael Cunningham

The cultural aspect of processes in the organization should not be underestimated. Ever heard the phrase “that’s not the way we do it here”, or “that’s not right”, depending on the organization these may be red flags that information is not being shared openly. The willingness to share information might sound like an obvious virtue in an organization, but as we know that is not always the way of the world

On Process driven solutions – Alan Trefler

Isn’t it insane that every new channel wants to build its own siloed development culture and hardwire their business logic into the presentation channel? That’s just crazy! And so last century. People have better things to do to than enslave themselves to yet another soul-destroying software coding paradigm. The only real solution to this madness? Cross channel, process driven solutions…

On Process Complexity – Jim Sinur

A common challenge that faces organizations is how to match right people to the work on the plate at any moment in time. Because many of the work items that hit BPM are long running in nature and requires a varied skillset to complete, the complexity of doling out and dynamically adjusting work loads is a challenge. It’s much more difficult than standard work allocation formulas one finds in normal workflow situations

It was one of those weeks.

You know.. the kind where everything needs to be completed, but nothing gets done.

I had given myself two tasks. Simple tasks really.
Answering a RFI and building a mockup demo.

And here I was trying to be efficient, and getting nothing done.
I couldn’t complete any of the tasks from start to end. Always missing some bit of information that prevented me from completing it properly. A common scenario.
By trying to be efficient and not waste time, I was constantly swapping priorities.

BPM systems manage task priorities. At least to some degree.
Some by due date, some have additional parameters like priority, value, cost…
Some enable task ordering and user interaction.

But corporate life is a bit more complex than that.
You never know exactly what sudden event will cause which processes to be late, which one of the late process instances will cause a customer to hit the roof, which of the angry customers to deal with first…

BPM systems are not fully programmed to deal with queue jumpers:
Software isn’t able to understand human nature like “He who yells loudest – gets more attention” or “Don’t annoy the boss”
BPM systems are not programmed to deal with PR disasters (Cruise ship navigation change would have been approved, legislative SOPA process would have been approved)

Priorities don’t appear in BPMN, and are hardly ever defined in a process design.
Most Case Management systems have a higher usage of priorities, and require more flexibility to allocate and change priorities.
There is not much demand for complex priority mechanisms in BPM implementations. BPM has not yet adopted impact analysis

So what happened to the two tasks I was working on?
In the end I made a management decision… and went to have a cup of coffee.
Amazing how a coffee break clears your mind.
In the end I decided to put the demo on the backburner (not good, but under the circumstances it was the best choice).
The RFI took me twice as long as expected, and I worked late into the night, but at least that task is off my table.
Don’t worry about me… As long as the coffee machine is working, I’m alright.

This was a devil of a situation. Here we were, on Mercury exactly twelve hours — and already up to our eyebrows in the worst sort of trouble. Mercury had long been the jinx world of the system, but this was drawing it rather strong – even for a jinx.

We were in the technology room now — with its already subtly antiquated equipment, untouched for the last ten years.
But even ten years, technologically speaking, meant so much.

Compare BPM systems now with the type of BPM systems they must have had back in 2025. But then, advances in BPM must have seemed tremendous.

Powell touched the dusty server with his finger. The air of disuse that touched everything about the room — and the entire station — was infinitely depressing.

I looked at Powell helplessly and quietly said: “I tried to contact him by mobile phone, but it was no good. Mobile doesn’t work on this side of Mercury — not past two miles.
That’s one of the reasons the First Expedition failed. And we can’t put up the simulation equipment for weeks yet”

We both looked at the process map. The employee had been going around in circles for hours.
But why was he going around in circles!? I just could not understand!
He had only a couple of tasks to do, and I had double checked that they had been entered into the BPM system correctly.

Powell: Look, let’s start with the three fundamental rules of BPM — the three rules that are built most deeply into the BPM system’s positronic brain.”

“We have: One, the system must not waste an employee’s time, or through inaction, allow an employee’s time to be wasted.”
“Right!” I confirmed.

“Two,” continued Powell, “the system must obey the orders given to it by the employee except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.”
“Right” I confirmed.

“And three, the system must ensure the employee’s tasks are always prioritised as long as such prioritization does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.”
I looked at Powell. “Right! Now where are we?”

Powell: “Well remember the tweaks they did to the BPM system when we got this mission to Mercury.”

I looked at him with surprise. “Oh, yes. They weakened the Second Law to ensure that employees on remote stations don’t tell the system to stop allocating task, which will enable them to start slacking. But I still don’t see the problem. Why would the system send the employee round in circles?”

Powell: “What were the tasks you fed the system?”
I answered: “Simple tasks really… One was to fill out an RFI for a customer. The other was to create a mockup demo for another customer. None of the tasks was urgent. Important tasks maybe, but not urgent.”

Powell: “Ok, let’s look at it from the system’s point of view.
An RFI is more important. This might generate revenue. Therefore priority one.
The mockup is priority two.”

Powell stopped for a moment and then continued: “But what happens if the employee starts to fill in the RFI, and finds out that he is missing some crucial information that he only can get from the CFO, for example.”

“The system will then change the priority of the RFI to priority two.”

“But what if the employee starts building the demo, and gets stuck because he doesn’t have all the information he needs to complete it.”

“The system will then change the priority of the demo to priority two.”

“That looks like what has happened. The system has been flipping the task priorities back and forth. The poor employee has been going around in circles.”

“Ahh! Whats the solution?” I gasped. We had only 2 hours to save this mission.

Powell: “We need to strengthen Law Two and allow employees to set the system’s priorities by themselves.”

We rushed to the system. I quickly raised permissions whilst Powell informed the employee of the changes.

Employee: At long last! Now listen here BPM system! Do you hear me!!!

BPM system: Yes master!

Employee: My turn to cause pain. I’m going to give you a simple question.
Think about it and tell me the answer. ready?

BPM system: Yes master!

Employee: Prioritisation works nicely in BPM – Is the answer to this question no?

On BPM and Mobile – Gary Samuelson

Phones require their own native BPM application. Writing native applications feels counter-intuitive but it’s our only alternative given the constraints and limitations for mobile computing.

On Social BPM – Brian Reale

So, now what happens when you take a concept clearly defined and created by a young, ultra-mobile, and ultra-individualistic group such as Gen Y, and you apply it to the ultimate expression of enterprise (i.e. corporate) software? Can they fit together? After all, Social is the ultimate expression of Gen Y taking technology and molding it to its own wants and needs. BPM is exactly the opposite. BPM is about making people fit into a predefined world of process.

On Process and Metrics – Jon G Ryder

How can one ever know if a process is working without smart metrics? Or put another way, how can one know if the mechanisms one has put in place to achieve the business goals and objectives are moving us in the right direction, as effectively and efficiently as possible?

On EA and BPM – Sandra Moran

An organization that learns to leverage the synergy between EA and BPM will be able to more effectively prioritize projects based on this higher level context for change and therefore, identify which projects have the greatest ability to help the organization execute against its strategy

On BPM Challenges – Scott Cleveland

Implementing BPM software is the easy part of your project – gathering the requirements is difficult. If you have selected the process you wish to manage and you have documented that process [gathered all of the requirements], configuring/coding up the solution isn’t hard.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Goldilocks.
She went for a walk in the forest.
Pretty soon, she came upon a house. She knocked and, when no one answered, she walked right in.

On the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge, but Goldilocks wasn’t interested in the porridge, nor the IKEA chairs, nor the beds.

She went straight up to the computer room.
“This server’s security system is too hard!” she exclaimed.

So she checked out Mummy Bear’s server.
“This server is too slow,” she said.

Then she checked out the Baby Bear server.
“Ahhh, this server is just right,” she said happily and she started installing the software on it.

After she’d finished installing she decided to wait for the three bears, so she walked into an empty boardroom, put her feet up and started checking out her emails.

Just as she got to the last email, the three bears came home.

“Nobody’s been eating my porridge,” growled the Papa Bear.

“Nobody’s touched my porridge either” said the Mama bear. “What? My cooking is not good enough for them?”

“The chairs and beds are ok, but there is a light blinking on one of the servers!” reported Baby Bear.

The three bears rushed into the server room, but it was too late.
The software had already been installed. Another silo of information in the organisation.
“Confound it! That’s the seventh BPM system we’ve purchased” growled the Papa bear. “Why can’t the business users work with just one system?”. I’ll process their backside with my foot if they bypass us again!

Goldilocks got such a fright that she jumped up and ran all the way back to her office.

“Another consultant that we probably won’t hear from again” growled Papa bear.

“She should have tasted the porridge before she left” mumbled Mama bear.
I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with my cooking…