Process Optimization and Orchestration

2009-03-10T09:06:00.000-07:00

I saw on the news this morning that a gun store owner sent a thank you letter to President Obama. It seems that since Obama became President, sales of guns has been booming. With each dip in the stock market, customers stream into his store, worried that things will get so bad they may need to protect themselves.

This is a bit disturbing to me. I hope that businesses are not falling prey to panic. I think that those who can hold on, figure out how to survive, we be better after it is all over. Of course, some will not survive.

Whatever happens, I think our world and our country will be changed. It is not the kind of change our country was seeking, but it will have an impact for many years to come.

Regardless, companies will still have to do more with less and be lean mean profit making machines. The question is, Are you looking at your processes for ways you can cut costs and drive profits?

I ask this question because the statistics show that companies are woefully ignorant of their processes, with less than 10 percent of them even written down. As the technology experts argue over whether a process is a process, we waste time that could be better spent figuring out how businesses can do business better.

Things that managers relegate to the cost of doing business column need to be examined to find cost savings. Things cannot stay at the status quo. We all need to be innovative, and not just in new products and services, but how we develop, manufacture, deliver and support those products and services.

We may not want to admit it, but in the cost of doing business column there is a lot of pork. Its time to get lean.

2009-02-25T11:58:00.001-08:00

I am watching with great interest what is happening in our government to address the economic crisis. As a business owner I am concerned with credit and with cash flow. It is everyone's problem. I think that answers to our current situation are not partisan, but by nature should be bipartisan.

Like other business owners, I am looking for ways to cut costs and reduce overhead while also being innovative and creating new ways to deliver product and service. We are also looking for new product and service. We are focusing on what our expertise can do to help other companies.

I started a consulting company many years ago during the Clinton administration and right after the defense crash in the late 1980's. It was a challenge then to balance taxes and cash flow with innovative product and services. There were lots of people who were either layed off or were leaving corporate America to start new businesses. It was both scary and exciting. It was never dull.

Today it feels the same. People are starting up new businesses and established businesses are trying to be more efficient and productive. The problem is, as it was then, how can we do more with less?

At Ingenuus, I think we have the expertise to help other companies find ways to cut costs and improve productivity - even without automating processes. Of course automating processes is a great idea, but much can be done without formal process automation. One thing that can be done is to document and store process information and documentation in a process repository. Having a process repository makes evaluation and optimization of processes easier.

There is much that can be done, and I think companies will find a way. If we can help, give us a call.

2009-02-13T10:05:00.000-08:00

Companies need to plan to succeed, even when times are tough. I have recently read several articles that described companies that survived downtimes as those who invested in the future, expecting to come out of the down time strong, ready to capture market share.

It is hard to think like that when cash is tight, credit is difficult, and customers are harder to get and even harder to keep. I know that I struggle to keep the big picture in mind and not get discouraged.

I do know that it is best to not simply hunker down and conserve, but to seek for ways to be better at what we do. My friend, we shall call him Frank, owns and operates an HVAC business. He is doing OK, but cash flow is a problem for him too in these lean times. Instead of simply hunkering down trying to cope with tight revenue streams, he is investing in software that will help him improve cash flow. It will help to automate many of the tasks involved with job management and fee collection. He found an adequate solution with the features he needs at a reasonable price.

Now that is a forward looking approach!

Because I am helping him do this project, Frank can easily evaluate how this investment will help him with cash flow and job management. So what does that actually save him? Well, it reduces and in some cases eliminates things that drain cash. That makes cash flow to the bottom line.

How does that translate into another business? Currently companies are laying off workers hoping that a reduction in salaries and benefits will drop to the bottom line almost immediately. The employees left have to do more with the same amount of time, and in most cases have to work overtime. In some cases contractors need to be hired to cover the gap. These additional salary expenses are less than before because they do not incur additional benefit expenses.

But what if you could make those remaining employees more productive? What if you streamlined your processes eliminating non-value added tasks and automating time consuming repetitive tasks? Well, you might need less overtime, and maybe no contractors. More money to the bottom line. But even better, when times get good again, then you will be ready to do more with less, increasing your profits as your business grows again.

Yes, you can spend money to make money, but you have to smart in how you do it.

2009-01-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

Times are tough. Companies are seeking to cut costs and conserve cash. Why would now be a good time to invest in software?

Lean times are a great time to get more efficient and become better at what you do. Using software to help that can position you for growth and expansion in the future when times are better. One of the tried and true methods for cutting costs is laying off workers, which many companies are doing right now. That means that all the employees left have to do more with less. That is where software can help.

In particular, that is where business process automation software can help. By automating and streamlining business processes, you can actually empower your employees to do more. If the project is affordable, i.e., doesn't cost millions and take 2 years to deploy, then you could be realizing savings almost immediately.

Check out our explanation of cost cutting here: http://www.ingenuus.com/perspective-costcutting.html

If you are thinking about cutting costs using business process automation software, you owe it to yourself to take a look at our product and pricing. You will not find our level of capability for less cost.

2008-12-19T15:45:00.001-08:00

You may have noticed a change on our website and in the name of this newsletter. We used to say Ingenuus was "driving efficiency". We still believe that to be true. But we also know that in tough economic times companies want to know how their vendors are helping them be more profitable. So we are "driving profitability".

We are explaining how Ingenuus technology and approach can help companies see real dollars drop to the bottom line. And, we want companies to realize that making changes now will reap huge benefits when the economy gets back on its feet.

Check out our website for new information on cost cutting and BPMplus. I think you will be surprised.

2008-11-14T12:57:00.000-08:00

In this kind of economy, companies are looking to find ways to cut costs. Often they do not think of ways to increase revenue.

Applying process automation to your organization can improve both efficiency and revenue if you take the right approach. Using process automation to address customer touch points, and processes that effect the customer, you can increase internal efficiency while improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

I have observed over the years that those who implement process automation, or any technology, simply for the sake of deploying technology, are frequently dissapointed with their results. But those who implement process automation as part of something else, customer satisfaction being one option, their results are more satisfying. I think it is because what is expected is clear, and measuring how well you are delivering on those expectations is easier.

This is particuarly true of customer expectation management. Knowing and managing what your customers expect is a unique, but powerful way to manage your process optimization and automation success.

If the customer is happy, then everyone is happy.

2008-10-27T09:59:00.001-07:00

Recently I have been influenced, in a good way, by my acquaintance with Terry Schurter, a thought leader in the BPM space. For the most part, we think of process in very much the same way. There is one significant way that he looks at process that has impacted me a great deal lately. Namely, his focus on customer satisfaction.

I subscribe to the notion that a process has one or more customers. By customer we mean, of course, the recipient of the outcomes of our processes. Some processes deal with internal customers, while others deal with external customers. What has been eveolutionary for me to consider is that much of our optimization and automation efforts in the area of processes occur with processes that have very little to do with our external customers and therefore have very little to do, directly at least, with customer satisfaction. Terry asserts that companies desiring to transform themselves to be solid competitors in the global market place must become customer centric.

This is a new thought to me. At least, as it relates to process automation and optimization.

His unique, non-technical approach to addressing customer centricity is decieivingly simple. It involves analyzing processes at 3 critical points - Moments of Truth (customer touch points), Break Points (process hand-offs) and Business Rules (process flow assumptions and constraints).
Although this approach does not require technology, it is clear that the right technology could make this analysis easier to do and manage.

For the most part I feel that Ingenuus has been very aware of break points and business rules, and our technology uniquely addresses these activities. Moments of Truth, on the other hand, have not been on our radar sceen - until now.

Perhaps companies shy away from automating customer processes, or using less complex technology to automate customer processes, is because they are, in essence, the most critical of all processes. For me at least, considering where the customer "touches" a process profoundly impacts handoffs and business rules.

Adopting this simple approach does not require management mandates or approval. It is simply a personal paradigm shift that can truly impact your organization. Enough people considering all that they do in light of these points will cause a shift in any organization's actions and ultimately their processes.

2008-09-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

My CTO keeps telling me, "Less is more." It is something to consider, especially related to the topic of Green. At Ingenuus, we are embracing green, and actually have been long before the idea of using less resources was popular and in vogue. In fact, our first tag line was, “Simply. Ingenious.” Our stated goal was to make complex, robust software simple and easy to use and maintain.

I am proud to say that we continue striving for that goal developing software that not only helps companies be more efficient by automating their business processes, but by making sure that our software does not drain corporate IT and process owner resources. We focus on 3 major areas: Efficiency, Functionality and Affordability.

Efficiency – often when I am reviewing a demo or a consulting project I will discover that we have consolidated 3 or more processes into a single, efficient process. In addition to reducing the number of processes required, I find that we have significantly reduced the amount of work required by process participants. Process efficiency is what we do, and we do it well.
Our software is also more efficient. It combines all the required functionality into a single design tool so that a trained process owner can map a process, configure web pages, build business rules, test process logic, and release the final process into production. No IT guru has to be called, no business process analyst has to be consulted.

Functionality – we have combined all the required elements you will find in BPM suites into a single product platform. This reduces the complexity and the cost of the software. In addition, we have integrated obvious companion software like enterprise application integration and document management. We have taken the idea of managing a document to the next level with our Active Packet technology where everything related to a process, all the documents, emails, URLs, pictures, markups, etc. are all kept in one “logical” place – the process folder.
Since we combine so much technology into a single solution, we reduce the need to purchase complimentary software. With other BPM solutions you will have to purchase a document management system, a dashboard builder, a report generator, integration software, and web page development tools. Not with Ingenuus. It is all there in the Process Orchestrator.

Affordability – to purchase all of the functionality provided by the Process Orchestrator, you would have to spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. Ingenuus makes BPM affordable keeping most initial implementations under $100,000.

When you are looking for Green BPM, don’t simply look for a product that can make your processes more efficient. Look for a solution that will make your organization more efficient by not only automating your processes, but by also reducing the time and money required to purchase and support that solution.

2008-06-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

Where do I start?

This is often asked by people wanting to know what to do when they realize they need to be more efficient. The answer can be daunting, and to some degree, I think there are many stake-holders involved that would like to keep it that way.

Scott Cleveland, in a recent blog entry, made the observation that BPM is much more than technology. BPM is meaningless without management discipline, he asserts.

I have to agree.

But the question remains - where do I start? I have several areas that make good starting points depending on your own circumstances. I hope these are helpful.

1. Document your processes - this does not have to be some strange exercise that is complex and takes forever. Start by simply writing down the processes you observe each and every day.

2. Determine which processes really matter - it is hard to figure out where to start if you don't even know what the options are. Once you have a list of processes, prioritize them. Which are more important, or critical. The results may surprise you!

3. Determine where improvements can be made, or automation used - not everything can be solved with software. Organizations are made up of people, and simple changes can have tremendous impact. Where can improvements make a real difference? Where can we automate to reduce repetitive tasks?

4. Share ownership - is can be amazing what happens when the head honcho takes responsibility for improving processes, then empowers process owners to make those improvements. Give them adequate tools, then trust them to do the right thing.

5. Be creative in understanding how technology can help you - you need to move beyond spreadsheets and word processing to some serious automation. Look for something process owners can, and will , use.

2008-04-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

Whats Up With That?

Recently I was talking to someone about our technology and they commented that we should get some analyst coverage. Well, that is interesting because the analysts don't want to cover us (unless we give them some money!). When we tell them that we have solved the problem of fully integrating mapping with business rules with screen modification and a process engine, they laugh and tell us that if the bigger BPM players have not done that yet, then it is impossible for us. They won't even take the time to view a web demo. What's up with that?

Well, I actually fully understand the dilemna. For years analysts have been trying to define the BPM market. They began to include all sorts of vendors that had products related to process - mapping, BI, integration, etc. This lead to a strange conglomeration of various tools defined not by the market itself, but rather, by the analysts. Because each of the major tools used in BPM were developed by different companies the ability to "play well with others" gave rise to several standards that would hopefully insure interoperability. These loosely integrated tools are called BPM Suites. If all goes well, and using standards, your process map could be exported into a process engine that could call a process business rule engine and then use certain application pages or web pages as the user interface. Analysts are now telling us that a fully integrated tool that merges mapping with business rules and the process engine is the wave of the future. Of course, that day has not yet arrived.

But actually, it has.

Lets say that a new BPM vendor was emerging on the scene today. In order to create this fully integrated tool, if the new vendor used the current standards such as BPMN or BPEL, they would seriously limit the capability of their product. In fact, it stands to reason that an emerging vendor could NOT build a product based on the current standards because none of the standards take into account that the tools (i.e., functions) are integrated. Thus, a process map would not contain business rule or screen information. Thus, an emerging product would have to abandon the current standards to build this new product. Why? Because the existing standards would drive product development to the least common denominator. This is why vendors keep saying that a fully integrated product is still several years away.

But I have good news! Ingenuus has integrated mapping with business rules with screen design and integrated it with a process engine. Yes, it does not export the process map into BPMN. Nor does it export into BPEL. The resulting files would contain less information rendering the resulting process useless. In fact, Ingenuus has integrated the major components into a single seamless system:

Process Mapping
Business Rule Engine
Integration Server
Business Activity Monitoring
User Screen Modification
Document/File Repository

Why did we do this? Well, because we are designing process optimization solutions that we expect to be used by process owners, not an army of IT professionals. We wanted it simple, yet robust. Is our product perfect? Far from it, but it appears to be the first to fully integrate all of the features needed in a real BPM product designed for the masses.

So, why aren't the analysts looking at us? Go figure...

2008-01-21T09:24:00.001-08:00

Reflections on Dr. Martin Luther King's Holiday

I am too young to know the reality of the denial of civil rights to women and blacks. I was not born when women's suffrage happened. And I was just a young child when the Civil Rights movement was at its most formative. In essence, I grew up believing there are no differences between us. But that is not reality.

Equality still requires us to seek it. To believe in it. Above all to practice it. It started with a dream, a vision of what could, no, what should be. That how we measure our fellow humans is not their gender or color of skin, but by their character. Although we, and I include myself here, need to continue to strive for equality not just on paper or in laws, but in the hearts of every citizen, we can ponder the legacy left us by Dr. King and others. That legacy is non-violent protest.

I think that in today's violent, terror driven politics, we can better appreciate the legacy left to us called non-violent protest. It did not begin with Dr. King, but he certainly burned it into our country's corporate conscience. He did not choose the way of terrorists. He did not choose the path of power, realizing that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. He instead chose the meek path, one that requires a greater strength of spirit than mere guns and military might. He showed us that one person can make a difference. He showed us that there is great strength in percieved weakness. He knew that the true realization of his dream would not be an imposition of equality by law or military power, but by changed hearts and minds. He sought to change our hearts and minds with dialogue, debate, and friendship.

This is in stark contrast to the world in which we live where those who feel down trodden or dis-enfranchised turn to violence and terror. They do not seek a change of heart, but rather, a shift in the balance of power. In America, we have been left with a legacy given to us by Dr. King where we believe that we can make change happen one heart at a time, rather than mass conformity at the barrel of a gun. We truly believe it is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Thanks to Dr. King, for the most part, we, as a nation, deplore violence as a means to an end, particuarly in the area of race relations and civil rights. Our marches on our nation's capital do not involve violence, and guns, and suicide bombers. We must remember to be profoundly grateful for that. Much of the credit goes to our brothers and sisters who, although denied thier civil rights, chose to take the path shown by Dr. King, and leave us in relative peace, even though they still suffer prejudice and in-equality. I do not fear a race related suicide bombing when I go to the mall or my chosen place of worship. Not that this has not happened. In fact, it is our black brothers and sisters who have had to endure an American form of terrorism. Fear of being bombed in church, or lynched because there were in the wrong place at the wong time. I am continually surprised by the patience of the Black community in waiting for their beloved country to wake up.

I believe that because of Dr. King's commitment to non-violent protest, we in America have been relatively free from the terror other countries experience. Even when Dr. King was brutally murdered, we did not see all out war. That alone is a resounding testament to the character of this man and an affirmation of the character of the black community as a whole. Our greatest testament to him is to celebrate his day, not with bombs, and riots, and terror, but instead with renewal of our personal commitment to the dream - that all men and women should be judged, not by their gender, or color of skin, or religious perference, or sexual orientation, but rather by their character.

So I will take today and remember with gratefulness that Dr. King took the path of non-violence and left us with a legacy we should be displaying to the world. It should cause all of us to stop and think for a minute - do I practice equality or am I bigoted and prejudiced?

Personally, I am renewing my commitment to equality and proclaim with a genuinely grateful heart, "Thank you Dr. King for sharing with us your dream, and showing us the non-violent path to achieve it. And thank you dear brothers and sisters of color, that you have lived his legacy with dignity and perseverance. Today, I stand with you and dream a common dream."

2008-01-11T13:41:00.001-08:00

Widening the Efficiency Discussion

Recently we have felt the need to widen our discussions on efficiency with our partners and others in the community. We have several exciting things planned that we will implement over the next few months.

The first is that we have invited our partners and friends to join us in blogging and in our newsletter. Starting in January with our first Ingenuus newsletter, we will have Jim Stewart from Executive Smarts LLC sharing his thoughts on process.

Secondly, we plan to post short video blogs where I interview guests and try to uncover war stories and helpful insights into driving efficiency.

Other things are in the works and we will announce them as they become available.

I am personally very excited about this recent development. A discussion about efficiency should not be limited to a few, but should be opened to ideas and opinions from many points of view. As a result, we all learn and improve our own efforts to drive efficiency.

Let's see how efficient we can become in 2008.

2007-12-18T10:54:00.000-08:00

I love this time of year. I grew up in dry, hot Arizona so I grew up as a young child without a "white Christmas". During my late teen years my family moved to Utah. There, Christmas was very white. I was fascinated by the snow and loved how it made the day or night so quiet. Hot and dry or white an hushed, Christmas is one of the best times of year. I love it all!

We have several Holiday traditions at our house. On Christmas Eve we gather loved ones and friends around a big buffet dinner. After dinner, we decorate Christmas cookies, as crazy as we can. Then, we sit down around the Advent wreath, light the candles, read the Christmas Story, and exchange cookies. We select someone to give a cookie to and tell them what we appreciate about them.

We started this tradition when our kids were just babies. For a few years they thought it was corny, but now that they are teenagers, then are beginning to come back to our family "traditions" and look forward to Christmas Eve expecting everyone to decorate and share. We even worried about including our parents thinging they may also think it was kind of sentimental. It is now our favorite family tradition, and everyone who visits expects the cookie swap.

Whatever your traditions are this Holiday Season, we wish you a time of love, joy, and a sense of family with your village. May the coming year be prosperous, and may we all be grateful for our blessings!

Happiest of Holidays to you and yours!!

2007-10-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

BPM Sucks

Recently I read a blog where the writer was complaining about BPM software. He accurately surmised, after looking at several BPM offerings, the BPM workflow has not changed significantly in 10-15 years. He also observed that BPM software remains difficult to work with. Finally, he asserts that BPM solutions need to focus on putting the power of process automation into the hands of business line managers.

Strangely enough I agree with him. BPM does suck.

That is exactly why Ingenuus is trying to make BPM better. In fact, we have, for some time now, agreed that process automation needs to be in the hands of business line managers. We have called them the "process owners". We also think that you can't do that unless the software is much easier to use. That doesn't mean it isn't complicated and robust, it just means that once learned, it does not require a process analyst and a process coder just to get something to work or to make a change.

I know it sounds very arrogant of me to assert that, as a BPM vendor, I am bucking the crowd and siding with the customer. But it is true. I was a user once, as well as a designer of workflow solutions, and for the most part they do suck. They are too hard to use, they have too many different tools (like a modeler, business rule generator, etc.) that are not integrated, and the vendors rarely understand what the main thing is - making life easier for process owners and participants.

We like to talk about "process context" which is just a fancy way of saying that your process automation system sould be a push not a pull solution. It should provide you with an environment where everything you need is right there so that you can do your task or activity and move on. If you have to look for anything, it makes that easy. If you have to run a report, it makes that easy. If you have to attach anything that is easy. Basically, it should be much easier than it is today. Yet, it should grow ever more powerful and capable.

If you have decided that BPM sucks, you owe yourself a look at the Ingenuus Process Orchestrator. It's not perfect. But it just may surprise you.

2007-08-20T10:28:00.000-07:00

Changing Process Optimization for the Better

At Ingenuus, we are committed to the manufacturing market, and the unique needs that manufacturing companies have when it comes to technology. Our product is very popular among those managing the processes related to products and product changes. But we have discovered over the course of time that many companies simply do not have their processes documented, so purchasing a product like ours seems to be too big of a step.

We also realized that the issue was not the technology - our technology is superb - but rather, how to best use it. Sometimes you are just too close to the answer to see it. Looking hard at our target market we found quality initiatives everywhere. Everything from Malcom Baldridge to Lean to Six Sigma to TQM. For simplicity I will simply call it Lean Six Sigma with my apologies to all those who may not like that label. We found one thing in common - all these initiatives were basically manual.

It became painfully clear that there were really two kinds of processes that needed to be addressed, and we were spending all our time and energy on only one.

Basically there are processes that document and manage other processes. We call these Type 1 processes for lack of a better term. These are your basic quality processes. They are generally not automated because of the traditional aversion to automation for most quality initiatives. They are used to document, evaluate and optimize other processes. They are usually called "projects" (especially in the Six Sigma world) and are how companies implement continuous improvement.

Then there are all the other processes, the ones we use everyday. We call these Type 2 processes. In general it is these processes that Ingenuus and all the other BPM vendors have been trying to show you how we can automate them.

Although the ROI is excellent, and the argument sound, there has not been a rush to automate Type 2 processes. I have a theory why.

Let's say your manufacturing company is looking to be more efficient. Upper management has asked IT and managers to look for software or programs to drive efficiency and improve innovation. You look around and find this amazing BPM product that does everything you ever dreamed of. You love the demo, and present it to your team. The team also things it is great so you prepare a presentation for upper management to get funding. You select a process to start with, you do the ROI, you prepare your justification. On the day you present the VP of quality says, "Well, we can do a Six Sigma/Lean/TQM evaluation of that process and optimize it without any technology. We do it all the time." The President nods, and just like that your project is dead in the water.

Of course, what the Quality VP said is partially true. But as a user you also know that only about 10% of the processes in your company are documented. Therefore, any changes to a process cannot be completely evaluated for impact. And everyone knows that once a process is changed, all the other processes that were not changed place pressure on the optimized process to return to its previous state. This is a well known paradigm in process re-engineering. But because everyone is convinced that this is under control and automation is not needed, it is business as usual.

Aberdeen did a recent study that showed best-in-class companies out performing others because they were careful to automate to increase visibility, not simply reduce errors. It appears that increased visibility makes a company more responsive and able to avoid costly problems and mistakes, or more quickly address them before they become too costly.

So, we developed a process optimization framework to help companies begin the process of documenting their processes. We call it, the Process Optimization Pyramid (TM). It is bascially a few Type 1 processes you can use to automate the documentation, evaluation, optimization, and eventual automation of other processes.

Now, the above scenario changes. You prepare your presentation and when you present, you demonstrate the automation of your companies favorite methodology for documenting and evaluating processes. You assure the stunned VP of Quality that now his Black, Green, and White belts can be more efficient and the company can more adequately evaluate processes for optimization. More importantly, because most if not all of the processes can be documented, inter-relationships that could not easily be seen before during evaluation can now be quickly and easily seen and explored.

For the first time you will be able to quickly establish a corporate Lean Six Sigma portal where all your process optimization activities can be orchestrated and reported on.

Yeah, I kinda like that. I would love to hear what you have to say.

2007-05-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

Recently an article crossed my desk which was an exit interview, if you will, of former Gartner BPM analyst Jim Sinur. He left Gartner to join a BPM vendor.

The BPM market is definitely growing, and seems to be accellerating. Today there are some 180 BPM vendors, 40 rule vendors and another 40 modeling vendors. With so many players in the market, how does the average person choose? Will the tried and true method of choosing the big, stable vendor be the best route, or should consumers take other things into consideration?
His comments on what the real differences are between the vendors products was informative enough for me to repeat here.

First, he was clear that no vendor that they know of has yet to develop the Business Process Management Suite as defined by Gartner. He states that the giants in the market like IBM, Oracle and Microsoft are at least 18 months behind the leaders. He also stated that the majority of vendors would not be able to deliver on the Gartner vision of BPM for 2 or 3 years. You wouldn't guess this was true reading the websites of most of the BPM vendors.

For Jim Sinur, continual optimization is the bleeding edge of BPM. He cites the following as the major issues holding vendors back from developing a true BPM Suite:

BPM requires an architectural approach that says there are common metadata assets that have to be treated as equals. These include rules, flows, services, events and data. They must be treated as equals, but for most BPM vendors, this is not the case. Each one focuses on their strength to the detriment of the other assets.

Remember the old addage, "If the only tool in your tool box is a hammer, everything is a nail"? Well, the same is true for vendors entering the BPM space. Just look at the core competency of the company and you will find their bias. For some, it is services. All you need is a bit of BPM software and a crew of coders and Viola! For others, it is content-data. Still others see business rules as the major component of BPM. Business Intelligence vendors have views of data, but don't treat events with respect or recognize the need for rules.

He sums it all up by saying that the player that balances those things together, in one environment is the one that will do the best.

I agree. Of course, it won't be just one vendor that gets it right. But it will be a minority. I believe that Ingenuus is already in that minority. It's just that very few people know that yet.

2007-04-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

Interest in process automation, and the benefits it provides, is on the rise. I have been hearing from so many business people that for the first time, business process management seems to be hot.

Frankly, I am glad to be here. And you should be too.

Early in my career I worked on several projects that were basically process re-engineering projects under the guise of quality initiatives. In fact, I think it is safe to say that process improvement has hidden behind Quality for several decades. It has also hidden in other initiatives and product promises. Finally, it seems to be coming into it's own.

It's about time.

Software has been shoved down corporate America's throat with the promise that it will do us good. Like castor oil or grape flavored medicine, we grin and take it believing what we are told. In our hearts I think that we believed that something was wrong, but we couldn't put our finger on it. So, we would go through a multi-year or multi-month installation project, while continuing to do our business process tasks like we always had. For most of us, our companies kept running. For a few, things ground to a halt, and the software needed to be revised.

Leaving a bad taste in our mouth, we grew leery of software vendor promises and kept our processes to ourselves. In the wake of global competition, and the drive for efficiency, we are discovering that keeping our process cards close to the chest, and paper based, is hurting the bottom line. Slowly we are trusting in software again.

BPM software vendors still have far to go. But unlike the boom years of PDM and PLM, there is a real buzz around automating business processes and the benefits that can be realized from doing so. Thankfully, the benefits are not limited to a particular group like engineering or manufacturing. Automating business processes touches virtually everyone in the company.

For the most part, companies are still keeping their prize processes close to the chest. But little by little, they are venturing out and finding that the water is just fine.

Actually, this is good news for all of us.

2007-02-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

Business Model Of The Future

I have watched with interest the changing business model for software sales. The hosted model, know to many as ASP or On-Demand, was thought to be the end of software sales as we knew it. It wasn't. It created new ways to get hooked or to try out software, but the really good stuff, the software features you really want, still cost lots of money and are mostly hosted by the buyer.

Next came software by subscription. I always thought this might take off, and it has. Especially for established software vendors. It removes the iffy maintenance agreement and makes the software "critical". Since you don't actually own it, you have to pay the annual fee to keep the system up and running. The rebellion that led companies to reject high maintenance fees and crappy software support has won only a partial victory. Seeking to cast off the shackels of the software vendors and high annual maintenance fees, companies have won the right to not pay for software they don't use. But unlike in the days when you purchased the software and you had a perpetual license to use it, under the subscription model, if you don't pay, the software stops working. Free from maintenance only to be hooked by subscription. What does the future hold?

Let me go out on a limb by saying that I think that personal software will go the way of subscription, but business software will come back to a solid purchase model. Why? It all boils down to a solid return on investment. I believe that software companies will evolve, and that BPM will become a sort of operating system for businesses to build their business processes on. Business processes will become applications. Once that happens, companies will develop their own applications that are really business processes using one piece of software, not modules or loosely integrated applications. Paying maintenance and support will be simplified because it will be based on the number of users and processes, not modules. ROI can be easily calculated because process metrics will be automatically collected.

Business processes will be like lego blocks, able to be assembled into any configuration to create custom business processes and projects. The processes of the future will be more "organic", not like the services envisioned today, but discrete process objects that can be linked and unlinked into infinite combinations.

We are driving toward this vision of the future.

2007-01-25T13:31:00.000-08:00

2007, The Year Of Efficiency

I am totally amazed by the number of people talking about improving efficiency in 2007. It is as if someone has launched a campaign and everyone is on the bandwagon. It is a good thing I think.

Companies for so long have been told that if they buy a certain software, or adopt a certain program, the will become efficient. I think the honeymoon is over. Companies have realized that it is people, not software, that needs to become more efficient. Software and programs are only tools. There has to be a commitment and a recognition of steps that improve efficiency. It is really more a journey than a goal.

We are working with new customers that have made a commitment to be more efficient in how they operate. It is making them look at processes and procedures, methods and culture to find how to do things better. Faster used to be a goal, but faster sometimes means lower quality. Get the product out the door, we will fix any problems later! Consumers are no longer willing to put up with that. Consumers expect that companies can deliver products and services with more features faster than before, with higher quality. That expectation has been driven by the ad campaigns of companies trying to sell software and services. The consumer sees and add that says companies running so-and-so's software is faster, better, etc. they will assume that products developed by that company are also better.

This is where efficency comes into play. Companies must not simply be faster and cheaper, but also better. By managing more aspects of the business, companies can do just that. Our customers have found surprising benefits to using our software. Originally purchased to get a single process and related documents under control, as they worked with the process management component, they discovered a powerful tool for process improvement that could take them far beyond creating and approving documents. They could manage tasks as part of a process, and then see what was (or wasn't) happening, and how long it took to happen (or not happen). This visibility changes everything.

The old addage, "You don't know what you don't know." applies here. If you could never see the HOW behind a process, then you would never know what to do to improve it. It would simply be an exercise done in simulation by a process "expert". But if you could see the tasks in a process, and know how long it was taking to complete the tasks, and also have the information to tell you about problems that impacted completion of thoses tasks, then you could effectively correct those problems and become more efficient. Visibility changes everything.

Can you "see" your processes well enough to make meaningful changes that improve efficiency? If not, maybe its time you could.

2006-10-11T15:03:00.000-07:00

"Ever been misled by big ERP vendors?"

This was the bold text in a recent ad on a technology newsletter I subscribe. After all these years, why is there still so much angst over ERP? And if users are so fed up with ERP, why are companies still buying ERP solutions?

Well, the answer is as complex as an ERP project. Part of the answer lies in the size of ERP implementation. Another part lies in the politics surrounding big software purchases. And another part is simply process related.

It is no surprise to anyone who has done an ERP implementation when I say ERP solutions are big. And they try to do everything, literally. So, when confronted with a problem they have never seen before, the answer is, "Sure, we can do that." I have seen ERP module charts that list 100 or more modules. It is mind boggling that one software can do so much. Of course, all of these "modules" are not discrete sections of one huge piece of code. They are separate technologies that were either developed by the ERP vendor, or were part of a merger or an acquisition. For many, getting the modules provided by a single ERP vendor to work together is harder (and more expensive) than integrating software from several different vendors. The pro of course is that since the software comes from the same vendor it will be given cohesive support, with the idea that overall support costs will be lower. And, the software comes from a vendor you can trust (I guess I say that with tongue in cheek based on the headline for this post).

Politics are another major factor in an ERP purchase. The dollar amount is so high that it is a C Level executive decision. Typically the President or high ranking VP makes the decision. They see the charts with 100+ modules and are convinced that the software can do anything. Further impressed by the wining and dining by the vendor, and promises of improved productivity and huge dollar savings, executives often believe that ERP is the only software they will ever need. Many times, the implementation team finds that although the dream of the buying executive is possible, it is not within budget and there is not enough time to get it done. The pro is that there is executive buy-in.

Finally, ERP software is just not designed with process in mind. It is solution specific, and therefore deals with the process inherent to the solution. But what if the desired solution is a cross functional process? That is much harder to achieve. But the C Level executive tends to think in terms of business processes when they evaluate the software. That is how they see their business - as cross functional processes. The result is a huge disconnect that is not easily bridged. The pro is that ERP vendors are working with SOA to make process more compatible with their application modules.

I understand the benefits that ERP can bring to an organization. That is why we integrate with ERP software. But I also know that ERP application modules will someday be replaced by easy to build process based "applications" that more closely mimic the way people do business, rather than simply being an impressive dashboard of solution specific funtions. People don't care how many features there are if the can't get their work done.

Software should help people, not get in the way.

2006-09-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

With blogging becoming such an innovative way to communicate, it only seemed appropriate for Ingenuus to enter the fray. For me personally, it is a great exercise in discussing topics I find relevant.

For those who know me, I am always ready to offer my views on process automation specifically and technology in general. I rarely agree with the pundits and analysts, preferring a more "pure" analytical approach to looking at what we know and extrapolating that into the future.

In the realm of process automation, there is much hype and little substance. But the promise of process automation is real. It is just harder to realize than many vendors make it sound. That is why we are here. We want to make it easier. Not easy. I doubt that it will ever be easy. Process automation means change of some sort, and change is never easy. But I personally believe that it can, and should, be made easier.

For instance, I read a recent article where the author was worried that the rigid contraints of process automation would dampen corporate creativity and flexibility. Funny that this comment can even be made since almost 90% of all corporate processes are not even written down and are still basically paper based. What company, or group of companies, were polled to reach such a conclusion?

Although it is true that many so called automated processes are rigid and difficult to change once implemented, it is not the goal of the current business process management (BPM) vendors to be so rigid. All of them desire and work toward making processes automation flexible and responsive to business needs. It might be true that some products are more flexible than others, but it would not be accurate to paint a picture that insinuates automated processes are "rigid".

In fact, the opposite might actually be true. By automating a process, a company is forced to understand the process, document it, and then map it. This exercise alone would be of great value. Placing the process into software that makes it "live" and collecting metrics, etc. as the process executes over and over provides valuable information that cannot be collected in any other way. Using this information from the actual process, companies can make improvements. As long as the software supports after-implementation changes, you are way ahead.

But because most processes are not even documented, companies are left in the dark. They truly "don't know what they don't know". No amount of simulation, or planning, or process re-engineering, or anything else can take the place of simply automating a process and then collecting actual usage data. If you don't know what the heck you are doing, then how can you improve on it by being creative and flexible?

Duh.