The Big Wave Goodbye…

  It is about to become something of the past. That’s sad because it really is something from the future. Something that could have even shaped it. If you had a Wave account, you might agree with me. Google announced the end of the Wave project months ago, but last weeks mail from the Wave team was sad to read and if you have an account, am sure you felt the same way. The Google Wave project excited the imagination…

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Metrics Can Mean Everything. Or Nothing.

  During a long weekend last year, a group of friends and I headed to a small  sea-side town around 100 miles from Bombay. Enroute, we stopped at a small hotel for refreshments – a franchisee of a reasonably well known restaurant chain in India. However considering it was along a highway, although a busy one, we weren’t sure of the quality of their service or their menu items. Such a situation calls for a safe bet on steamed ‘Idlis’,…

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Last week I’d written on how having a well thought-out change mgt program is critical for BPM success. As a first step, a BPM program has to overcome what I’d like to call BPM Inertia.  Defn. of Inertia from Physics  – The tendency of a body to preserve its state of rest or of uniform motion, unless acted upon by an external force. BPM Inertia therefore, could be defined as the tendency of a person, group or community in an…

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#BPM and Change Management – Time to Tie The Knot?

  Call it culture, resistance to change, fear, politics or just old fashioned pig-headedness, but BPM initiatives are seldom without change issues and internal friction of some kind. And as we see BPM adoption increasing, there is increasing proof of the existence of such a thing called BPM Inertia. And it compromises the degree of BPM success. It seems to me that almost any firm running a BPM initiative acknowledges the need for change management at the beginning, but not…

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A Reality Check on Agility and BPM

  So, that BPM product demo excited you? The vendor demonstration of agile features may well have made your mouth water. You now think your investment in BPM licenses will make your firm agile. Well, sorry to be the one to break it to you, but it may not. Maybe you should think again. Sure, BPM can give the power of agility to organizations. But let’s face it, it’s really not BPM that’s going to get you there. No. It…

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Are You Letting Good get in the way of Better?

  To me, if there is only one striking difference between a BPM solution and a conventionally developed application, then it is the opportunity to unlock hidden potential for improvements. Many organizations at the crossroads of a decision do overlook this aspect and decide against BPM. I have come across a few in the past. Reasons, however, maybe attributed to high license costs or other such considerations. Of course, while this may well be true, the question I often ask…

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Long and Winding Road?

I read Neil Ward-Dutton’s post yesterday and burst out laughing. No, don’t get me wrong it is a great post, but the reason for my reaction was that it reminded me of this video I will share with you in just a moment. Neil’s point is so true. The post talks about  the scepticism creeping in to the value promised by BPM, because if there is so much tom-tom about what it can do, where are the droves of exhilarated…

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Time to Get Cracking With BPM

A little more than a fortnight ago, I had bounced a few thoughts about how BPM should not merely be about automation but should instead be about unlocking competitive advantage. I had taken an example of two firms in a quest for competitive advantage implementing packaged software; and discussed whether  they would find a definitive edge over each other even if they both choose the same software products. If they both got on the BPM bus, there could in fact…

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Enable, Empower, Improve, Unlock: Your #bpm Mantra!

BPM should be about exercising and asserting your firms business priorities,  along its lines of control. Especially lines at the top and the bottom. Sure, you’ve heard it before that BPM is about the business. But indulge me for a bit. Let‘s say the CIO of a manufacturing company A buys product X because it can help optimize inventory and reduce costs. He gets the software implemented and X nicely fixes not just that bloated inventory but also that big…

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#BPM in 2011 – Looking Back and Looking Forward

2010 was a good year for BPM – more firms took to BPM, while many firms already using BPM set off to unlock more value from BPM; most top vendors posted another year of great growth; overall BPM visibility increased significantly and it is gradually becoming less of a concept understood only by few and defined differently by many. What most purists and proponents fundamentally think and opine on BPM tends to get a little muddled – if I may…

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The Challenge of Getting BPM to Deliver

If you follow the BPM market, you would agree that the expectations today from BPM have seen a change from what it was a few years ago. Although the driving concepts and the fundamental promise of BPM may not have changed, they are certainly being better appreciated today and by a wider audience at that. One of the things I cherish most in my role is the opportunity to have conversations with customers and prospects who are thinking about BPM…

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Michael Vizard says in his article, The Trouble with IT isn’t Really IT, “….In reality, IT is little more than a reflection of the business it supports. If the IT department is a mess, it’s likely because the business it is trying to support is an even bigger mess.” Very interesting thought – and with BPM and process improvement projects, biz could perhaps find good help to get less messy. This article is especially interesting since BPM itself brings up…

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Who Is the Boss in Social #BPM – You or your Customer?

How will social BPM affect your customer? The possibilities that Social concepts lend to BPM are interesting. Doug Mow used the the right words – Today’s social media reality makes the customer a very influential source of word of mouth pressure both positive and negative. I think the use of the word Influential is very important to note. There has been much said about how Social Media will impact traditional methods of managing functions that involve customer interactions with the…

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