Sandy Kemsley › Comments

Thomas Allweyer's book on BPMN 2.0, in German. - Sandy Kemsley

Almost 4 years after I first suggest a BPM camp, someone is actually going to do it. Scott Francis of BP3 is planning one that is limited to Lombardi customers, but intended to be a true unconference. I'm very interested in how this will work out, since I think that it could be a model for user conferences and non-vendor-specific conferences in the future, even for enterprise attendees who find this all a bit too new-age-y and weird. - Sandy Kemsley

A "checklist for performing design reviews when building service capabilities that are part of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) initiatives." Some good pointers here. - Sandy Kemsley

SAP releases NetWeaver BPM sample apps, including Approve Sales Order Change Request, Approve Purchase Requisition and Create Purchase Order, Manage Leave Request, Unexpected Returns Handling, and Phase In Equipment. - Sandy Kemsley

This came up in the panel that I was on at BRF last week: I think that PM/BA certifications provide some value by enforcing a standard set of knowledge, but I agree with Jim that it's not the only indicator of whether someone is competent at the job. I see too many people put into the role of BA, especially on BPM projects, who have inadequate experience or skills to properly do the job: is it a surprise that we have such a high failure rate on these projects if the critical link between business and IT is broken? - Sandy Kemsley

Even if you're not automating processes, there's still a lot of potential ROI in modeling them for documentation purposes. Here's 45 places to look for that ROI. - Sandy Kemsley

SnapLogic creates an online marketplace for web-based ETL components. - Sandy Kemsley

Some interesting speculation on what BPM will look like in 10 years. - Sandy Kemsley

A great pointer for process modeling: "as a minimum, put the checks after activities where the free will is clearly visible" - Sandy Kemsley

A video of a process modeler in a virtual 3D environment (think BPMN meets Second Life) developed by the Businees Process Virtual Environment (BPMVE) research theme at the Queensland University of Technology, a key BPM academic research institution. Interesting, but the video doesn't show any real advantages over a classic 2D process modeler. 3D could be used to solve some topology problems present in 2D models, it would be more interesting to see these modeled in this environment. - Sandy Kemsley

I see a lot of companies using (or attempting to use) SharePoint as a front-end to their ECM system, and many don't do it very well. Here's a list of basic principles to start with if you're planning a SharePoint-ECM integration. - Sandy Kemsley

Reasons include "not putting processes first" and "buying an SOA". - Sandy Kemsley

Collection of links on analyst views about Oracle BPM. - Sandy Kemsley

How to create assets in your BPMS that maximize reusability. Good pointers for putting some structure around what you're doing in the BPMS, such as how to provide information about your assets to external calling applications (e.g., another app that invokes a process needs to understand the stateful nature) and alignment with information/data models. - Sandy Kemsley

October release of Lombardi's Blueprint includes more process analysis features, some new properties, and email notifications. Great example of Lean software (reference my other link to Keith Swenson's post), where there are frequent releases with a few new features rather than a big bang once every year or two. - Sandy Kemsley

Anatoly Belychook on dynamic/unstructured processes, including two key patterns: "a little help from a friend", where an ad hoc collaboration is spawned from a step in a structured process, and "process toolset", where a structured (sub)process is launched from an unstructured process or case. - Sandy Kemsley

Keith Swenson on applying lean principles to software development: "Features designed but not coded is a waste of time. Code that is written but not tested is a real liability because there is now a hidden amount of work that must be done to correct problems in the coding. Completed features in the code, but can not be installed are still a waste. Building a bunch of features in parallel multiplies the waste." I would add that services that are created as part of an SOA initiative but not consumed are also waste. Keith highlights the central theme of the book as "Waste is eliminated by a steady flow of product releases, each quickly generated from the last", or specifically in the software world, "the continuous flow of small features allows for much more rapid response to market changes". - Sandy Kemsley

An update on Oracle BPM from the recent OpenWorld conference. I wasn't at the conference and haven't had a briefing yet, so looking forward to getting a more in-depth update. - Sandy Kemsley

Good (and short) podcast with Mike Kavis on BPM tool selection - Sandy Kemsley

More on Fujitsu's customer ESI and how they used the automated process discovery offering to improve their processes. I saw this presented at Gartner and blogged about it, looks like a huge potential win for a lot of SAP customers. - Sandy Kemsley

Checkpoints before you go out and invest in a BPMS. - Sandy Kemsley

Oracle BPM 11g review - Sandy Kemsley

Good post on what your BPMS needs to have in order to integrate well with all sorts of other apps that you may have in your computing environment. - Sandy Kemsley

James Tayler is here at SAP TechEd in Phoenix too, but he seems to be getting to many more sessions than I am. Check out his coverage of the conference. - Sandy Kemsley

Todd Biske's coverage of Oracle OpenWorld this week - Sandy Kemsley

Good points from Scott Francis, as a follow-up to my blog post from last week, on how to do iterative development even if you're bound by a waterfall contract. - Sandy Kemsley

Good comments on SAP's Gravity experiment, combining process modeling with Google Wave for collaborative process modeling; the question is when will SAP do something similar to enable collaborative process execution, that is, unstructured processes? - Sandy Kemsley

Dick Hirsch on a taxonomy of social BPM sites/tools, plus the current players and what category that they fall into. - Sandy Kemsley

SAP starts beta test for NetWeaver BPM sample applications - Sandy Kemsley

Key anti-patterns include having only a project focus, and ad hoc reuse (which I suspect would be highly correlated). Good list of things to watch out for when building services. - Sandy Kemsley