Nuova Release Teamworks: 6.1

E' stata rilasciata  la nuova 6.1Teamworks.

Eccone le novità:

Reports: la nuova release permette di generare reports ad-hoc e condividerli direttamente dal portale utenti, non è più indispensabile creare il report dall’Authoring Environment.

Express Installer: la nuova express installer permette di installare Teamworks più velocemente e non richiede requisiti software specifici. Non è la versione da utilizzare “in produzione” e installa JBoss e Microsoft SQLServer Express.

Web Services Connector: nuovi “connettori” in aggiunta a quelli esistenti nelle precedenti versioni. Lombardi continua a collezionare e testare nuovi WSDLs non appena sono disponibili e li mette a disposizione degli utenti per assicurarsi che questi siano in grado di utilizzare i web-service standard presenti in Teamworks.

Coach Document Attachments: la nuova release permette di gestire più facilmente gli allegati, sia in fase di disegno (drag & drop) sia in fase di utilizzo e condivisione dal portale.

Coach Layout Controls: più flessibilità e semplicità nella creazione delle coach, nell’assegnazione delle variabili, possibilità di allineare i pulsanti, inserire la lunghezza massima dei testi etc..

Process Monitor: la funzionalità di process monitor permette, agli utenti abilitati, di stoppare il processo, sia in fase di sviluppo che di produzione, quando si verifichi un errore nel processo.

Route to List of Users: molti clienti hanno processi che indirizzano In Teamworks 6.1 un processo può essere assegnato ad una lista di utenti appartenenti ad un gruppo I task verso gruppi di utenti mutevoli. Qualche cliente non è in grado di gestire gli attributi degli utenti per definire i gruppi di lavoro..

SQL Connector: è più semplice di prima la modellazione di un processo che si connette a un database, i services sono comprensivi di database interaction, incluso il supporto per la parametrizzazione delle query. Questi services possono automaticamente mappare i risultati di una query.

Error Handling: maggiori e più dettagliate informazioni evidenziate nel debug per gestire e rimediare a errori di modellazione.

Support for WebSphere XD: per i client che gestiscono le ultime potenzialità J2EE di IBM, Teamworks supporta IBM WebSphere Extended Deployement Operations Optimization Version 6.1.0 Fix Pack 1.

Nuovo utente Teamworks: TeliaSonera

Telia Sonera la compagnia telefonica finlandese è un nuovo utente Teamworks.

Leggete qui

Sempre dal Finalcial Times

Altro articolo su Finalcial Times: Teamworks di Lombardi utile per applicazioni CEP (Complex Event Processing).

CEP, business activity monitoring and business process management are spreading well beyond the financial services industries, however. Phil Gilbert, president of Lombardi, a specialist USbased BPM software group, says the company has been working with Dell Computer for several years.
"With Fedex and UPS we are co-ordinating Dell's global computer shipments," he says. "We receive real-time feeds from third-party logistics carriers for the status of every single shipment.
"The moment any of those goes into a 'distressed' state, the software fires off a dispatch in real time to people in the call centre based on who the customer is and in what geography. Humans can then deal with the exception and ensure the computer is delivered. Over the course of the past four or five years, this has saved Dell hundreds of millions of dollars."

Process management: making complex business simpler

Questo è il titolo di un lungo articolo apparso sul Financial Times del 14 maggio.
Per leggere l'articolo cliccate qui.

Nell'articolo si fa riferimento a Teamworks e vengono anche citate esperienze di nostri utenti.

Considerazioni sui recenti annunci IBM e SAP

Leggete qui un interessante post (di Jim Rudden, Lombardi Software) con commenti e considerazioni sui recenti annunci fatti da IBM e SAP.
Qui i commenti di Bruce Silver sullo stesso argomento.

Citazione

‘Give business-people a reason to care about SOA; give them BPM’ (Joe McKendrick)

Sul BPM di SAP

Alla User conference della settimana scorsa SAP ha presentato lo status di Galaxy, che rappresenterà la futura offerta SAP per il BPM.  Benchè Galaxy non sia ancora disponibile SAP lo sta spingendo con l'obiettivo di congelare la scelta da parte dei propri clienti in attesa del rilascio.

Dalle varie presentazioni si ha l'impressione che la soluzione sia molto sap-oriented e che saranno necessarie varie nuove release prima che diventi un prodotto valido anche in ambienti non solo SAP.

Ecco alcuni commenti da parte di esperti del settore (Ray Wang, Sandy Kemsley, Dennis Howlett, Madan Sheina)  :

1)   "It will probably take a couple of iterations to get to the point where they're happy with it and the customers are happy with it," said Ray Wang, an analyst with Forrester Research. While the embedded nature of SAP's BPM tools presents certain benefits, the benefits may be diminished for customers with highly heterogenous environments, Wang said: "If your world revolves around SAP, this is a great tool. If you've got other kinds of stuff you want to support, you might try something else.    "http://www.techworld.com/applications/news/index.cfm?newsID=101436&pagtype=all

2)   Sandy Kemsley: My immediate impression is that in the near term, they’re creating a BPM platform that’s fairly loosely coupled (via web services) with core SAP applications, which doesn’t appear to provide any advantage over using a third-party BPMS with SAP applications; in fact, more mature BPM suites are likely to provide greater functionality.
http://www.column2.com/2008/05/sapphire-bpm-in-sap-netweaver/

3)   Dennis Howlett (Irregular Enterprise): I was less than impressed, given that unless customers are ‘green field’ sites, then there is limited value to be derived from this offering compared to what is already on the table from SAP or from competitors Lombardi and others.    http://blogs.zdnet.com/Howlett/?p=386

4)   Madan Sheina (Ovum): The basic functionality provided in the first release of NetWeaver BPM also raises an important question - what advantage does it provide over using best of breed BPM products like Lombardi in conjunction with SAP applications. While NetWeaver BPM provides reasonable level of out-of-the-box functionality that will satisfy its existing customer base the more mature BPM suites on the market still provide richer capabilities.
http://www.ovum.com/news/euronews.asp?id=6947

Siete nuovi al BPM?

Se siete nuovi nel mondo BPM qui potrete trovare tutta una serie di documenti e materiali vari che  vi permetterà di saperne di più e che vi farà venir voglia di partire con una sperimentazione.

Trovate qui anche una bella introduzione al BPM: " An introduction to  Business Process Management" preso dalla risvista CIO.

Questo è l'indice (cliccabile) dell'articolo:

• What is BPM?
• Can I see a quick example?
• What does BPM provide that other enterprise applications do not?
• How does BPM fit in with legacy, ERP and other enterprise systems?
• What kinds of processes are typically the best candidates for BPM?
• It seems like everyone is selling BPM—what does the BPM vendor landscape look like?
• How is BPM related to service-oriented architecture (SOA)?
• Are there any standards being developed for BPM?
• What does BPM cost? What are the hidden costs?
• What is involved in implementing BPM?
• How do companies organize their BPM projects? Who should own a BPM initiative, business or IT?
• How do I build a business case for BPM?
• How do I measure and actually get ROI from a BPM project?

Sul BPM di IBM

Avete un progetto che sembra buono per un'applicazione BPM. Siete un'installazione IBM. Perchè no usare il BPM di IBM per il vostro progetto?  Sembra la scelta più logica. Leggendo il materiale marketing IBM sembra che IBM sia una soluzione leader tra i software BPM.

Il problema è che, a livello marketing, tutte le soluzioni BPM sembrano uguali, perchè tutti i produttori usano le stesse parole per spiegare i benefici di un BPM.

La realtà è che le differenze significative sono nel come i vari prodotti funzionano e qualio sono i tempi e i costi di realizzazione dei progetti.

Per vedere queste differenze bisogna andare oltre le informazioni commerciali: bisogna usare il prodotto.

 

A questo proposito Lombardi Software ha preparato un documento che presenta 5 semplici test da eseguire per scegliere il prodotto giusto.

Potete scaricare il documento completo qui

Eccone la tabella finale

I blog più letti

Facendo una ricerca com Google (stringa: blog BPMS) il mio blog appare al sesto posto (su 87.000 trovati). Incredibile!!!! 

BPM e SOA: un matrimonio che s'ha da fare

Secondo Gartner i due approcci hanno obiettivi comuni, ossia agilità e controllo, e possono aiutarsi a vicenda per avere effettivamente successo in azienda.

"La SOA è un'architettura applicativa in cui i dati e le logiche di business sono 'servizi' modulari. Le applicazioni assemblano servizi e, quindi, si fanno più agili. Il BPM è invece un insieme di discipline di gestione che accelera un miglioramento efficace dei processi di business, riunendo metodi incrementali e di trasformazione"

Leggete l'articolo completo su CWI cliccando qui.

Intervista a Rachel Aukes, di Wells Fargo, sul BPM

Intervista effettuata da Wayne Snell, Senior Director of Marketing in Lombardi software (ripresa dal blog di Lombardi Software)

Recently we sat down with Rachel Aukes, a member of the Wells Fargo Financial Information Systems Continuous Improvement Team. Rachel, who plays an active role in the use of BPM at Wells Fargo, shared how Wells Fargo got started with BPM. In February, Wells Fargo received the Global Award for Excellence in BPM and workflow.

Process People: Describe in as much detail as possible the problem or need on a project level that first made you consider BPM and/or Lombardi as a viable solution.

Rachel Aukes:

Our BPM program came about as a solution to organizational level needs - in fact we selected our BPM solution (Teamworks) and began to implement it before deciding on a specific project. We were challenged with increasingly complex, paper-intensive processes that had a large number of manual steps and handoffs. That was obviously inefficient and meant there was room for errors (such as bad typing, misplaced files, etc.). The idea of what BPM offers became prevalent in 2006 when most of our development staff was focused on maintaining our legacy systems while building our future systems of record. This effort was strategically important to our company; however, the business had immediate tactical needs that must continue to be met. We asked ourselves what we should do to best support our business partners, and we determined that BPM was a good solution for this. We haven’t looked back.

Process People: Where did the BPM program originate - IT or the business? Who leads it today?

Rachel Aukes: Our BPM program originated within IT and has over time evolved towards the business. Through the experience we’ve gained through delivering process solutions using BPM, we determined that the business people are excellent at determining where the BPM program should focus - that is what helps us to get the best value. When we started, IT “cherry-picked” projects that looked like a good fit for BPM, because they offered us sizeable savings in terms of money, effort, etc. After several projects, we realized that even though we were achieving good results, cherry picking is not always the best approach to remain aligned with the long-term business vision. We are now putting the Business behind the steering wheel for the directional planning, project prioritization, and solution review efforts related to our BPM program.

Process People: What were some of the surprises along the way? What was the most unexpected thing that happened during your first project?

Rachel Aukes: We have learned a lot as we went through our BPM projects, and the first one was full of surprises! The most unexpected event was midway through the project. We had told our business partners we’d be back in one week ready for them to begin testing - this was about three weeks into the project. When we showed up, they were stunned to see us back so soon, saying they thought we were joking. From that we learned we must set (and continuously reset) expectations throughout the project. A second lesson that we learned from our first project came from a predictable event. Using Teamworks gave us an iterative approach towards our projects, which drastically cuts development and testing time, but we quickly learned that iterative development also leads to infinite scope. Because changes can be made so easily in the BPMS, we found that our business partners continuously wanted to add “just one more thing.” From that point on, we began to plan for interventions in each of our projects - a break in the project for IT and business management to reset expectations and scope.

Process People: Describe the reactions during the first process playback.

Rachel Aukes: Simply stated, there was love in the air. When we conducted our first playback it began with skepticism - how could we have something to show them already without having all the requirements? As the playback progressed, our business partners began to understand how they really do get to have a hand in designing their solution; no, they get to drive the design. By the end of the playback, they couldn’t wait for the next one so they could watch their process evolve seemingly before their eyes. Needless to say, playbacks have become the special niche for our BPM team.

Il Blog di Lombardi Software

Anche Lombardi Software ha un blog:

Per visitarlo cliccare qui

Come analizzare un processo per migliorarlo ?

Molti clienti ci chiedono qual'è il miglior modo di partire per analizzare un processo aziendale.

• Partire dalla situazione "as-is" o iniziare sub ito dalla "to-be" ?
• Che livelli di dettaglio sono necessari ?
• Chi deve partecipare all'analisi ?
• Come non rischiare di finire in un impasse ?

A tutte queste domande vuole rispondere un Webinar organizzato da Lombardi  il 14 maggio p.v. alle ore 17.00.

Per iscriversi cliccare qui.

Una interessante analisi su Lombardi

Macehiter Ward-Dutton, una azienda inglese specializzata su tutto quanto ha che fare con "IT-Business alignment" ha pubblicato un VCA (Vendor Capability Assessment) sulle soluzioni Lombardi.

Per accedere al report cliccate qui  (bisogna registrarsi ma è gratis) oppure inviatemi una mail e ve ne invio una copia.

Filmato del webinar su Blueprint

E' in linea sul sito Lombardi (per accedere clicca qui ) il filmato del webinar tenutosi il 29 aprile su "Blueprint Spring release".

Durante il webinar sono state presentate le nuove funzionalità appena rilasciate.

BPM News n. 3

Un po' in ritardo ma è disponibile il nuovo numero di BPM News. Ora anche in formato elettronico direttamente dal blog.
Cercato sulla colonna di sinistra.

Seminari sul BPM a Roma

Ecco una buona ragione per un vaiggetto a Roma:

  vi organizza due seminari sul BPM dal 16 al 20 giugno.

Il primo dal 16 al 17 verrà tenuto dal famoso Roger Burlton, autore del libro qui a fianco riprodotto e sarà su come "PROGETTARE E GESTIRE LA PROCESS-CENTRIC ENTERPRISE"

Mentre il secondo, dal 18 al 20 giugno sarà tenuto da Kathy Long sul tema: "MODELLING, ANALISI e DESIGN"

Per informazioni e iscrizioni visitate il sito www.technologytransfer.it

oppure cliccate qui per il primo seminario e qui per il secondo.

 

Architettura & Processi

Si è tenuto nei giorni scorsi a Washington un affollatissimo convegno su Architerrure & Processi.

Sandy Kemsley era presente: se volete leggere la cronaca e i commenti sui vari interventi clicate qui

Se volete vedere le presentazioni ckiccate qui

Austin vista con Google Street view

Lombardi Software è a Austin in Texas.

Ecco come si vede la via centrale, Congress avenue, con il nuovo servizio di google Street view.


View Larger Map

Blog dal sudamerica sul BPM

L'attenzione al BPM è ormai un fenomeno mondiale.

Qui il link al blog brasiliano " BPM oggi".

Da notare anche in questo blog il link ai blog di Phil Gilbert e Bruce Silver.

E qui un blog da Caracas, Venezuela

Qui siamo in Cile.

Lombardi Named Overall Leader for BPM

E' appena stato pubblicato los studio di Bruce Silver "BPMS report" con un'analisi dei migliori prodotti BPMS.

Ecco cosa dice Bruce:

"I’ve just finished the BPMS Watch Ratings, a comparative scoring of the 11 leading BPM Suites written up in my BPMS Report series on BPMInstitute.org. Those reports, which are available for free, include
Appian, BEA, Cordys, EMC, FlowCentric, Global 360, Lombardi, Oracle, Singularity, SoftwareAG/webMethods, and TIBCO. I would have liked to get Pega and Savvion - they declined."

Nello studio Lombardi-Teamworks è risultato il migliore prodotto, detto con le parole di Bruce :

"Based on our analysis, the leader whenconsidering a single BPMS for all type of process are Lombardi e BEA"

Qui un'articolo che ne parla.

Se volete una copia dello studio potete scaricarla dal sito del BPM Institute qui oppure chiedetemelo e ve lo invio.

Video-demo di Teamworks6

Qui trovate 5 bei video-demo di Teamworks e Blueprint

http://www.lombardisoftware.com/bpm-software-brochures.php#

 

Buona visione

DRIVEN 2008

La  conferenza annuale utenti di Teamworks si terrà quest'anno a Austin dal  16 al 19 giugno.

Per dettagli e per iscriversi cliccate qui.

Dopo l'annuncio IBM...

Il 7 aprile durante il meeting IBM impact in LAs Vegas IBM ha annunciato  "nuova BPM suite"; eccone un autorevole commento dal blog di Bruce Silver.

Estrapolo alcune delle frasi più interessanti:

...so what is the new offering announced today?  It’s called the “IBM BPM Suite” (look ma, no branding!) and it includes both WebSphere and FileNet (with some Rational and Lotus, as well).  Does that mean they’ve finally integrated the components?  Not really.....

...clearly IBM is interpreting the word “suite” to mean a portfolio rather than an integrated platform...

...one of my biggest complaints about the WebSphere BPM story has been the jarring discontinuity between Modeler and WID - different process metamodels, different data models, different programming models, no roundtripping.....

Se volete leggere la versione integrale del post dal blog di Bruce Silver cliccate qui

Blueprint: screenshot dalla nuova versione

   

Blueprint: nuova versione e 2400 clienti

Nel corso della web conference del 2 aprile Phil Gilbert ha annunciato e presentato la nuova versione di Blueprint e ha comunicato l'attuale numero di clienti: 2400 con 5 utenti ognuno in media.

Le novità più salienti in Blueprint sono:

• Possibilità di riusare processi come sotto-processi
• Nuove funzioni nel disegno dei diagrammi
• Import da Microsoft-Visio

Per accedere a Blueprint (gratuitamente) cliccate qui.

News da Lombardi

Il 2 aprile la Lombardi ha organizzato una web conference aperta agli analisti per presentatre le ultime novità.

Sandy Kemsley era presente e ne ha scritto nel suo Blog qui

BPM sorpassa SOA

Un recente studio Forrester Research su circa 500 aziende (USA e Europa) ha rilevato che circa il 60% hanno in essere progetti BPM e che altri 19% prevedono di iniziarli entro 12 mesi. Questo 79% ha superato l'analoga percentuale di adozione di SOA.

In un altro survey su 164 aziende (USA e UK) condotto nell'ottobre 2007 più ell'85% delle aziende intevistate aveva in essere o pianificava nei mesi successivi un progetto BPM.

Ecco la ripartizione per settore delle 164 aziende (USA e UK). Notare il 31% di banche e assicurazioni.

Molto interessante anche l'indicazione sul beneficio primario ottenuto dai progetti BPM. La maggioranza delle aziende per misurare il successo di progetti BPM utilizza metriche: eccone la ripartizione.

Se volete leggere il report completo mandatemi una mail e ve lo invio.(giorgio.anselmetti@ariannaconsulting.it)

BPM vs WORKFLOW

Una delle classiche domande durante gli incontri con prospect è sulla differenza tra BPm e Workflow.Qui riporto la posizione di Jin Sinur, a suo tempo guru in Gartner e ora Chief Strategic Officier in Global 360.

Many folks that I have talked to in the past think that there is no difference between workflow and BPM. I would like to examine the arguments around this statement. It’s not quite so simple to say they are the same because of the scope of BPM versus workflow, and it’s hard for folks with a workflow history to see the difference.

The Workflow View:

The workflow view says that work does flow in a process, so BPM is obviously workflow. It might be a bit fancier in the technologies that surround and enable process activity, but BPM is truly workflow. Workflow, as a technology, handled the work that was passed from one human to another.

Early instantiations of workflow were software implementations of passing multi-part carbon-paper-laced forms around, (designed before copiers, carbon paper was fused between multi-colored paper copies to duplicate through pencil/pen pressure on the top form), except these forms are now digitized. We have come far and are saving trees now, so content-based workflow is viewed to be the grand-daddy of BPM.

The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is active in BPM, so BPM must be purely and simply “workflow on steroids”. I even used this analogy to avoid the arguments with workflow types.

The BPM View:

I think to say that workflow and BPM are one in the same is a bit outlandish, myself. Yes, work does flow inside of BPM technologies most of the time. It’s not true that work flows when sharing and collaborating within a case folder for knowledge workers because there is no flow. Each worker does their thing on a shared set of information that may or may not have activities completed on them. I think there are two other fundamental differences.

First, BPM is more than work flowing; it’s a practice and a discipline. BPM is a management practice that treats processes as a corporate asset in order to attain the goal of improving business agility and operational performance while staying compliant. Also, BPM is a discipline that employs methods, rules, metrics, practices and software tools to manage and continuously optimize an organization’s activities and processes in light of management strategies, decisions, policies, goals and tactics.

Secondly, BPM is agile, real time, can include deep system activities, and is visible. Workflow does not employ rules and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), which are essential for running agile activities. In the pursuit of constant optimization (saving as much time and money as possible under a set of changing conditions), BPM employs real time, complex events that can be initiated outside the scope of the process and allows for management to visibly see the effects of work completion and outside activities’ effect on the results.

Bottom Line:

Like it or not, there is an implicit link between workflow and BPM; but BPM is so much more than just “work flowing” AKA workflow. The discipline is going to a level of sophistication that business professionals demand and the technology is much more than workflow. These concepts are connected in the same family as process activity, but workflow is like the “horseless carriage”. BPM is the high performance vehicle for a number of needs.

Potete leggere il Blog di Jin Sinur con i commenti al suo post qui

Workflow vs BPM

Navigando ho trovato una definizione molto carina. La lascio in inglese dove suona meglio:

Workflow is "doing things right"

BPM is "doing the right thing"

SOA e BPM trend in Google

 

Ecco i grafici relativi alle ricerche e alle news su "SOA" e "BPM "così come evidenziati da Google.Trend

 

 

Interessante anche la provenienza: sembra che in Italia ci sia finalmente interesse per l'argomento.

What's Driving BPM Demand? It's the Economy, Stupid

Riprendo integralmente un articolo di Sandy Kemsley, apparso su "Intelligent Enterprise"

The model-driven approach and new SaaS-based offerings are sparking interest in business process management technology, but the recession may send demand over the top.
By Sandy Kemsley

A few key themes are emerging as the latest drivers of business process management initiatives. First and foremost, model-driven applications are increasingly seen as the wave of the future. Second, software-as-a-service-based offerings are starting to emerge, opening up BPM to midsized enterprises. Third, BPM in a technology that can actually thrive in an uncertain economy.

The Appeal of Model-Driven Approaches
Model-driven architecture enables a platform-independent model of business functionality to be created independently of the underlying technology. Importantly, the modeling environment is geared toward nontechnical business people. This decoupling of business logic and technology lets business people get in on the act of application/process definition since the models are understandable and don't require inclusion of the technical implementation details. But model-driven apps aren't just powerful because business people can create a models; they're powerful because those models can actually be translated directly into executable code, sometimes with only minor technical modifications.
BPM suites (BPMS) are a prime example of a model-driven application; graphical process models are typically created by business analysts using a standardized notational format such as Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). That model, similar to a flowchart view of the process, is easily understood by business users, yet it contains enough information to support a relatively painless and swift conversion into an executable process in the BPMS engine. If integration with systems are required, an IT person will likely be
involved to connect specific tasks in the process through Web service calls — often just matching of input and output parameters — but generally little or no code needs to written in order to create an executable process.

At Allianz of America, for example, the business owns the process and maps it down to a specific level of detail before turning it over to IT people who "move it over to the BPM tool" says Tim Rofling, IT Director of Allianz of America Shared Services. Relying on an interative methodology and focusing on small projects with a potentially big impact, the company has managed to implement an impressive number of processes, each within a 60- to 90-day timeframe. Examples include securities application processing, money processing for applying premiums and life insurance underwriting. In a new (insurance) product implementation, Rofling says cycle times to implement new products were reduced from more than 50 days down to 12 days largely because the model-driven approach removed IT development bottlenecks.
Moving to a model-driven approach changes the entire application development cycle: not only do business and IT people collaborate on modeling the business processes, the same model is then used to monitor and manage the processes in real time once they're in production.

BPM and SaaS
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is no longer seen as risky technology. In fact, it's downright mainstream to the many organizations using systems such as Salesforce.com to manage their confidential customer information.
SaaS is used for a number of reasons: to reduce the up-front cost of systems and the IT infrastructure required to support them, to pilot the use of a system or technology without making a major investment, or to
bypass the long cycle time of a new system implementation within a large organization.
A few BPMS offerings are starting to appear via a SaaS model, with more expected during 2008. In some cases, these are pre-packaged applications built on a BPMS platform. For example, Enkata offers a contact center application based on Lombardi's BPM suite while Lawactive has legal applications built on Metastorm powered
workflows. SaaS-based BPMS platforms are also becoming available, such as Appian Anywhere and Fujitsu Interstage.
Although it's unlikely that most large organizations will use a SaaS-based BPMS platform in the near future, the attractive pricing structure allows small- and midsized-businesses to take advantage of technology that might not have been previously within their financial grasp.

BPM and the Economy
Given the increasingly bleak economic projections for 2008, Gartner and other analysts are predicting a slowdown in IT spending in most categories (although they're still expecting nominal growth in IT spending overall). Bucking this trend, however, will be expenditures on BPM and related technologies, which will be significantly above average thanks to interest in running businesses more effectively and efficiently.
The predecessor technologies to BPM, such as human-facing workflow, became popular in previous economic downturns for precisely the same reason: automating tasks and reducing handoffs within business processes can reduce the headcount required to complete those processes. In fact, until 2002 when the drive for compliance struck most large organizations, improving productivity — either for the purpose of reducing headcount or increasing capacity — was the primary driver behind most BPM implementations. The past three
to four years of economic growth have shifted the focus of many BPM implementations to providing greater agility and visibility into business processes, but increased efficiency is usually assumed to be underlying
benefit of every deployment. As belts tighten, the interest in BPM will swing back to productivity improvement.

Sandy Kemsley is an independent systems architect specializing in business process management, Enterprise 2.0, enterprise architecture and business intelligence.

Il suo interessantissimo Blog lo trovate qui

Vince Lombardi

Tutti sapete che il nome di Lombardi Software è stato scelto in onore di Vince Lombardi, il più famoso allenatore di football (americano).
Per saperne di più su Lombardi cliccate qui al link al sito ufficiale

Qual è il valore della SOA

Il "valore" di una architettura SOA deve essere analizzato con due angolature differenti: valore per il Business e per l'IT.

Riprendo da un blog americano:

Business Value
The business gets value when SOA is used as an enabler of BPM. You can reengineer your process all day, but you need to allow these business processes to communicate with your legacy systems. The business can't wait for IT to blow up legacy applications in order to create new user interfaces with robust workflows under the covers. Instead IT must abstract the legacy layer and make it easy to build composite front end applications that leverage years of investments in the legacy applications. This allows IT to deliver huge amounts of value to the business in a relatively short amount of time using the right tools (BPMS).

IT Value
The value for IT is in reuse and speed to market. As your SOA matures, the amount of reuse grows exponentially. If you architect SOA correctly, you will move from creating services to consuming services. Once you have built a good baseline of abstract services, you can quickly meet the business's demands by assembling business services rather then building them from scratch each time. Think of it as Lego building. If you start with a hand full of white and red Legos that are rectangular in shape, you can create a few nice structures out of them.

Then you add more colors, followed by new shapes (circles, squares, arcs, etc.), followed by custom pieces (parts for trucks, trains, buildings, boats, etc.) and soon you can build an unlimited amount of structures.


The Real Problem
What I see as the real problem preventing companies from successfully deploying and realizing value from SOA is they don't fully understand SOA and they underestimate the amount of change to the culture. So here are the list of non technical issues that will kill your SOA project:

• If you don't align SOA with a key business driver, you greatly reduce the odds that you will ever reap the rewards of SOA.
  
• If you don't include BPM in your SOA implementation, then SOA becomes just another IT buzzword for the business and not an enabler.
  
• If you don't take a proactive approach to change management, resistance will prevail and you will spin your wheels dealing with change (been there, done that).

Key take away
The problem with SOA isn't SOA, it's people. People must understand SOA and the importance of aligning their initiative with a key business driver. BPM is the killer application that can get your business sponsors on board.

Definizione di Business Process

Ecco una bella definizione di Business Process, ripresa da un vecchio libro di Thomas Davemport "Process Innovation: reengineering work through information technology" del 1992 (!)


“A Business Process is a specific ordering of Activities across time, space and participants. A Business Process has a Beginning, an End, and clearly defined Inputs and Outputs and Steps.”

BPM hall of Fame

Bruce Silver sul suo blog sta lanciando una Hall of Fame del BPM e tra le prime nomination ecco il "nostro" Phil Gilbert con questa motivazione

"Phil Gilbert. BPMN’s power comes from the fact that its shapes and symbols are intelligible to business, yet expressive and precise enough to serve as the “abstract” definition of executable process solutions. But lacking support for human tasks, subprocesses, and looping back to previous activities in the flow, BPEL turned out to be an imperfect runtime companion for BPMN. Fulfilling the promise of business-empowered implementation actually required a “BPMN engine,” but no BPMS vendor had one. As CTO (now President) of Lombardi, Phil Gilbert elected to break his own shipping product and build one. That’s either nuts or brilliant, but Lombardi’s Teamworks has emerged as the first and best realization of BPM’s promise of business-empowered implementation based on standards and business-IT collaboration"

BPM in ebraico

Sito sul BPM in ebraico.
Notare il riferimento a Lombardi anche qui.

Buona Pasqua a tutti i lettori

Collegare SOA al BPM invece che il BMP a SOA

Il titolo suonerà un po' strano ma vi consiglio la lettura di queste osservazioni riprese da un blog americano.

"SOA has more traction these days than BPM does. SOA tools are more mature, but they are also wildly technical. If you want to model a process in an EAI or ESB tool, don't expect to share that model with the business. BPMN is a visual language invented by people who like flowcharts.

Clue #1: the business hates flow charts.

There is value in connecting BPM to SOA, but it is entirely possible to do one without the other.

BPM can be performed for reasons that have nothing to do with IT automation. You can focus on improving the processes in the assembly of a manufactured product, or make the manual steps in a paper-based order processing system efficient. However, to truly unleash the power of BPM, you need to get past the biggest hurdle to it's effectiveness: the expensive IT project.

Many Business Process Re-engineering efforts die on the vine because the first step is to create a model for a new business process, and the second step is to change the IT applications that support the existing process. Step 2 becomes expensive and time consuming. The business looks at the return on investment for fixing the process, and the annual cost of making the change to IT, and is unlikely to see any real value in making the change at all.

Connecting BPM to SOA makes BPM work. We can deliver a process change FAR less expensively if it means creating a new composite than if a process change was to drive an altogether new IT system. SOA without the justification of business change is a chaotic and expensive animal that should be killed. In many companies, it has been killed as an expensive waste of time.

The only value we can get out of SOA, in the long run, is if we make the business more agile by removing the obstacle of expensive IT development. We don't need pure SOA. We need BPM+SOA.

Unfortunately, most EAI-based tools are written the other way around. We (tool vendors) expect our customers to build the services first, and then attach them to business processes in a great big flow chart. Head's up. Doesn't really work that way. In that model, the process diagram is the last thing you build. It needs to be first. Without the diagram first, you can "describe" the conceptual services you need, and even build the base infrastructure, but you cannot build the enterprise services without starting from the business process and working toward the service. Seamlessly.

In this paradigm, BPMN is a problem. EAI tools support BPMN as a flow chart (see clue #1 above).

If we will see the BPM+SOA concept take off, it won't be because we decided to teach a million businessmen to read BPMN flow chart diagrams. BPM+SOA will take off when we learn to develop SOA models from the business process diagramming standard that business already uses: the swimlane diagram.

Let me repeat for clarity: we should attach SOA to the Swimlane Diagram, not business process to the BPMN flowchart.

There are already tools on the market that take this approach and many more are appearing. This is the direction that many software vendors, including my own, have been slow to understand.

Cracking this nut will require that we start where the business is, enable a higher level of immediate quality and consumability where the business is, and THEN tie in IT where the services are. Starting where the business is requires a new tool. Building the services will use the existing tools. We are half way there.. ... but only half way there.

Update for clarity: Yes, I know that BPMN allows you to model a swim-lane diagram. Swimlanes are a problem in the EAI space, however, because we didn't put people into the process from the start. In many tools that started from the EAI space, the swimlane is the afterthought and human collaboration semantics are not well managed. This includes things like worklist, notification, team assignment, handoff, ad-hoc routing, and other elements that are typical of workflow tools that do not show up in EAI tools"

Un nuovo modo per fare ricerche su web

Dalla mappatura al BPM

ABILAB ha pubblicato, ottobre 2007, un interessante studio, prodotto dal gruppo di lavoro sui processi bancari, dal titolo "Dalla mappatura dei processi al Business Process Management".

Nell documento sono presentate in modo chiaro, anche se in modo sintetico, le tre fasi evolutive verso l'organizzione della banca per processi.

1. Analizzare per conoscere: la mappatura dei processi
2. Monitorare per capire: misuratori e indicatori
3. Gestire per migliorare: implementare un ciclo di miglioramento continuo

Nello studio hanno anche fotografato lo stato dell'arte del sistema bancario italiano attraverso un survey su 29 istituti (che rappresentano il 52% in termini di dipendenti del mercato).

Ben l'83 % ha in essere un processo di mappatura, in mano, nel 73% dei casi all'ufficio organizzazione, mentre solo 2 banche hanno in essere un progetto BPM.

Il documento presenta poi un analisi della convergenza necessaria tra tool di analisi e tool di automazione e della dicotomia tra user e IT.

Teamworks di Lombardi è la soluzione giusta per abbattere la barriera tra Business e IT e permettere un vero lavoro di Team che può essere la chiave di volta per il successo di una inziativa BPM.

Studio IDC su 5 utenti Teamworks

Leggete qui , delle parole di alcuni nostri clienti, intervistati da IDC, come hanno utilizzato tecniche di Business Process Management per implementare e controllare vari processi di Business e perché è stata scelta la soluzione Lombardi.
I processi implementati e i clienti intervistati sono:

• Improving financial reporting, operational efficiency, and managing rapid growth (Lance Armstrong Foundation)
• Data entry and invoice/billing reconciliation (Aflac)
• Onboarding new hires (Lee Memorial Health Systems and a Fortune 100 bank)
• Managing workflow around digitization of a massive genealogical database (Church of Latter Day Saints)

BANKINVEST: nuovo utente Teamworks

Bankinvest Group, società di Gestione Patrimoniale danese, ha implementato Teamworks per gestire in modo completamente automatico il processo del reporting ai clienti.
L'applicazione è stata realizzata in soli 18 giorni e tra le funzioni che il cliente ha apprrezzato maggiormente figura la "simulazione" e "l'ottimizzazione".

Leggete qui il comunicato stampa.

BPM in ascesa

Ricerche specializzate evidenziano il ruolo trainante del BPM in azienda, confermandone la costante ascesa di mercato.
Leggete qui

Alla buon ora!!!!!

Dall'indagine di ABI Lab, contenuta nel rapporto "Dalla mappatura dei processi al Business Process Management" si apprende che "Gestione dei processi: un obiettivo realizzabile" e che "Le banche italiane riconoscono l'importanza di mappare e gestire i propri processi operativi".

Più avanti è scritto anche "La ricerca ha altresì evidenziato che la ricognizione dei processi tramite la mappatura non sia che l'inizio di un percorso, che può porsi come ambizioso traguardo la gestione della banca per processi."
Sembra veramente che la banche italiane, da buon ultime nel mondo, abbiamo capito l'importanza del BPM e che la mappatura da sola non basta. Speriamo!!!!

Se volete leggere da dove ho tratto le affermazioni di cui sopra cliccate qui

Perchè la SOA ha bisogno del BPM

Kaushal Mashruwala on why SOA needs BPM: “If the world’s biggest-budgeted software vendors really want to have sponsors in both IT and business units, and keep selling software, they need to elevate the role BPM plays in their suites.”

Leggete qui

Da una ricerca sulle Banche di SAP

In an interview with The Banker in September 2007, Thomas Balgheim, the head of SAP's global banking line of business, mentioned the lack of progress in banks' ability to execute on strategy. In the 2007 EFMA/SAP research, 46% of the responding banks said that they believe that their IT systems fall short in supporting the achievement of business strategy. That's a significant increase from 2004, when 36% thought their systems fell short. But banks expect to do better: The 2007 study found that only 6% think that their systems will fall short three years from now.

The 2004 study found that banks had high expectations for their systems at that time, and yet, their dissatisfaction actually increased in the ensuing three years. There are a variety of reasons that might explain that disconnect. For example, we might assume that:

* Banks weren't able to execute as planned.
* New types of customer behavior had a strong impact on the services delivered by the banks, which required banks to adjust their IT support.
* The market environment changed more, and in more unexpected directions, than banks thought they would.

Looking at banks' actual situation in 2007 and their plans for 2010, the research shows that:

* Banks think that the gap between expectations and reality will largely disappear due to recent adjustments to IT services.
* The momentum of market development could be built into the business strategy on top of the 2004/2007 gap resolution.
* Preparations made between 2004 and 2007 have not yet contributed to IT service, but should do so in the 2007-2010 timeframe.

Meanwhile, IT is being called on to support business targets that have changed, and continue to change. For example, banks now tend to see cross-selling as key to growth, as opposed to the past emphasis on mergers and acquisitions. Customer-focused strategies aim to understand and manage customer behavior and the customer's perceptions of the bank, which supports cross-selling, retention and new customer acquisition. These factors have helped bring analytics and business warehouse support to the forefront-something that wasn't widely foreseen in 2004. Banks are also interested in the synchronization of customer engagement across different channels, which requires the reduction or elimination of siloed data management.

The research also provides a sense of what banks need to do to support their business goals, and to keep the gap between IT expectations and reality from growing larger. For example, it seems clear that strategies built entirely on in-house systems don't guarantee competitive advantage. Meanwhile, standard applications are less cost-intensive in terms of development and maintenance, and can typically be implemented fairly quickly. They also don't tie up as many internal resources, so banks can focus more on innovation. Most of the respondents said they are open to using standard software, especially in human capital, supplier management and financial processes.

As they consider these issues, banks should look at the experience of other industries that have made the transition to standard software and used it to achieve greater efficiency while preserving the ability to create competitive advantage. Banks face significant and growing IT issues, and the lessons learned in those industries could help them move more quickly from strategy discussions to execution.

Trend di mercato

Le iniziative per migliorare i processi di business stanno diventando una priorità per manager di business e IT
Quello del BPM è un mercato in forte crescita: IDC stima che tra il 2006 e il 2011, il suo valore aumenterà di dieci volte, passando da 500 milioni a 6 miliardi di dollari. “Ci aspettiamo una crescita rapida del mercato sia a causa dall’ampliamento delle implementazioni vecchie che dalle nuove”, spiega Maureen Fleming, program director for business process, integration and deployment software di IDC.
Dopo il forte consolidamento avvenuto nel 2006 il numero dei fornitori di software di BPM è passato da 150 ad appena 25 nel 2007; e i grandi vendor di software si stanno sostituendo ai piccoli 'pure play' con un'offerta che unisce il BPM a collaborazione, portali, gestione dei documenti, SOA, architetture event-driven e business intelligence.
Il BPM è sempre più usato per gestire processi che abbracciano diverse applicazioni: la ricerca di BEA dimostra che il 65% delle implementazioni di BPM integra tre o più sistemi e il 60% dei clienti completa la prima implementazione in meno di sei mesi.
Tra i fattori critici di successo, indagini di mercato e ricerche sui clienti mostrano che le sfide organizzative - come le politiche interne, la gestione del cambiamento, la mancanza di competenze degli analisti business e l’allineamento organizzativo - pesano più dei cambiamenti tecnici che possono ostacolare l’implementazione BPM.
La principale evoluzione tecnologica del software di BPM è rappresentata dall'integrazione di strumenti di collaborazione e social computing, che permettono agli utenti di partecipare alla realizzazione, gestione e monitoraggio delle applicazioni come mai prima d'ora. Le principali soluzioni BPM supportano oggi funzioni per i processi collaborativi e sociali che oggi sono dispersi in e-mail, documenti e discussioni.
testo ripreso da CW

BPM Basic for Dummies

Che il BPM stia diventanto un fatto assodato è dimostrato anche dal fatto che è appena uscito negli US il libro "BPM Basic or Dummies" .