Standards Are The Answer

Doug Henschen, in a recent posting on Intelligent Enterprise Linking Insight to Action: The Next Big Goal pointed to issue of enabling the business itself to operate the levers of change.

One of the reason this is so fragmented is that we have loads of vendors all pushing their proprietary approaches. The BPfM (Performance) vendors need to interface to the BPM (Process) vendors products more effectively. Right now, each one of these interfaces is a bespoke point to point integration (whether it be WebMethods to Blaze to Business Objects … or Metastorm to Cognos … or …)At the OMG we are working on a “standard” to enable this interaction more effectively.

Dubbed BPRI (for Business Process Runtime Interface) this should revolutionize this problem and make the issue a thing of the past.

Think of BPRI as enabling more effective Business Process Analytics and ongoing optimization of the process over time. What we need is more involvement from the very vendors who decry the lack of effective solutions. That is especially true of the BPfM vendors.

Expect to see the standard thrashed out a little more before it gets posted for public consumption, but individual vendors who are interested in exploring the implications of this standard should contact me directly.

It Has Been A While - BPM Training, New Site

I know it has been the best part of a couple of months since I posted anything … but it is all to do with the pressures of work and the need for a holiday. But now back into the swing of things and you should at least see a posting from me every week.

One thing I did want to let you know about was out upcoming training schedule for BPM Focus. The BPMF Learning Framework is continuing its onward development (now incorporating two key courses - “Starting Out and Rolling Out BPM Programs” and “Advanced Process Modeling.”

Starting Out and Rolling Out BPM Programs is really focused around ensuring that projects are appropriately set up and managed. The December session was very successful and we expect torun further events across the US and Europe over the coming year. The next public courses at this level will be March 21-22 in San Francisco and April 18-19 in London.

Advanced Proced Modeling - this is a new course developed in conjunction with the best in the business - the main original author of the BPMN spec (cant say who until we complete the negotiations with his employer); and Martyn Ould (the grandfather of one of my favourite techniques - Role Activity Diagrams). APM will give you all you need to know about BPMN, RADs and Business Capability modeling. It will be available online by mid-year. The first instructor led versions of this training are scheduled to be Santa Monica (April 2nd and 3rd) and in London on May 1st and 2nd). A full schedule of events will be available on the BPMF web site.

And talking of web sites, we have been developing a new site, which should go live in the next week or so … these things always seem to take longer than you expect. This new site will shortly include a BPMM self assessment tool, user log-in … to come is a wide variety of new services and content that registered users will have access to.

In the short term, if you are interested in the training, please contact me directly (miers @ bpmfocus.org).

Till next time - Derek