Thursday Review 31st December 2009


HAPPY NEW YEAR!




Here are some of the links posted over on the Process Cafe Posterous this week1

Things are a little light because traditionally the week between Christmas and new Year is a week of relaxation. As we ramp up into the New Year I expect things to improve a little.

Combining Business Process Management, Services Oriented Architectures and Lean Six Sigma to accelerate results « BPM BlueWorks Community Blog - A detailed article from IBM about integrating the disciplines and capabilities of BPM, SOA and Lean Six Sigma. I know this won't please those who frown on LSS as being outdated, but a lot of the other items make sense.

Using The Cloud For Business - What the cloud means to business process. - The man who built Cordys talks about 'the cloud' and what it means for business processes

Two BPMN Self-Tests « BPMS Watch - Bruce Silver compares and contrasts a BPMN self-test from academia with one he has created himself. Both are basically marketing options, but which one do you prefer?

Are the Power Vendors Making a Move in BPM? - Jim Sinur from Gartner notes a number of observations designed to indicate that Power Vendors are making a move into BPM. What are your thoughts on this?

Forrester Targets Business Process Professionals in 2010 - InSights - Looks like Forrester are starting to focus on business process professionals in the coming year. Well, I'm right here. Come talk to me.

Business processs success? Whose job? - CIOL Opinion- Vivek Kumar Sharma argues that dashboards are an ideal way to heal the divide between IT ownership and Business ownership of the business process. Personally I'm not convinced that  this is the right problem to be addressing. Business Process ownership is a business issue not IT. What do you think?

AIIM - BPM/Workflow with SharePoint and K2- Someone obviously likes working with K2 and Sharepoint. Interesting article from a US based guy who has done extensive work on implementing K2 pilots. Worth a read.  

1 The Process Cafe Posterous is a place for linking to process related articles written by other people that don't merit a full post on the Process Cafe but are still worth your time reading.





Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project Second Edition' is now available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



The Unseen Face of Process projects - A summary of the series

This is the final post  in a series focused on process work. Particularly process work being carried out in projects. It links in closely to my eBook ‘The Perfect Process Project’, version 2 of which has been released. If, after reading these posts, you want to purchase a copy of the book please feel free to click over to the appropriate page and do the business.

Friday Review 25th December 2009



Merry Christmas to all my readers. Happy Holidays and Compliments of the season



Here are some of the links posted over on the Process Cafe Posterous this week1 
(Please note the next Friday Review will not appear on New Year's day, but it will be published on New Year's Eve instead.)

OMG Members Adopt Business Process Modeling Notation 2.0: BPMN Advances - A confirmation that the OMG BPMN 2.0 notation has been officially adopted. What does this mean to you and your daily work?

The 80/20 Rule for Business Processes : Razorleaf.com - I'm not sure I'm there with this concept. The Pareto rule makes sense for a lot of things, but is it appropriate for processes? Surely decision management and business rules should go a long way towards solving the 20% issue? Your thoughts?

Application Platform Strategies Blog: Bring another BPM platform into the shower? - An interesting article analysing the BPM/Lombardi purchase from the point of view of all the tools IBM has recently purchased in this space. Did you know, for example, that since 2002 IBM has purchased 7 former players in the BPM space, some competing on collaboration platforms? Is there a real strategy here?

BPM Conference – Vendors Showcase BPM and EA Capabilities « (BPM) – InSights - A report back from the BPM CON II conference showing four vendors different approaches to BPM.

BPM 2009: Top Ten Impacts - Gartner - Jim Sinur from the Gartner Blog network lists his top ten impacts of BPM in 2009. At first blush these appear to be a little 'motherhood and apple pie' to me. Does anyone have empirical or anecdotal evidence for any of these? (e.g. 'BPM is taking on larger scoped projects delivering bigger benefits than before'?)

I would be interested in your thoughts on this list

Adoption of BPM - Some analysis from AIIM Report - InSights - Some very interesting statistics and analysis here.

Business Process Professionals Crave Business/IT Partnership, Process Frameworks, Skills Development And Peer to Peer Networking - Forrester's focus for BPM in 2010. An interesting article worth 10 minutes of your time to read.
1 The Process Cafe Posterous is a place for linking to process related articles written by other people that don't merit a full post on the Process Cafe but are still worth your time reading.




Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project Second Edition' is now available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



The Unseen Side of Process Projects - Part Six : Doing the wrong things

This is the next in a series of posts focused on process work - particularly process work being carried out in projects. It links in closely to my eBook ‘The Perfect Process Project’, version 2 of which has been released. If, after reading these posts, you want to purchase a copy of the book please feel free to click over to the appropriate page and do the business.

The Unseen side of Process Projects - Part Five : User involvement

This is the next in a series of posts focused on process work. Particularly process work being carried out in projects. It links in closely to my eBook ‘The Perfect Process Project’, version 2 of which has been released. If, after reading these posts, you want to purchase a copy of the book please feel free to click over to the appropriate page and do the business.

Friday Review 18th December 2009




Here are some of the links posted over on the Process Cafe Posterous this week1

10 lessons we could take away from 2009 – and probably won’t – taraneon international blog - An extremely good article from Thomas Olbrich identifying 10 lessons we should learn.. but won't. Process focused and well written (and he gives The Process Cafe a mention as well!)

Announcing the December ‘09 Blueprint Update- Lombardi Blog - An update on the Lombardi Blueprint toolset that I reviewed back in March

Dynamic Business ProcessManagement (BPM) - White Paper - Computer Weekly - A white paper from IBM on Dynamic Business Process Management and how it can help companies improve their business

SharePoint 2010 Helps With Nagging Process Headaches - The Forrester Blog For Business Process & Applications Professionals - A few thoughts from Forrester on Sharepoint 2010 and how it will help/hinder business process work

Do Your Processes Give Your Customers Away? (The Process Ninja) - Craig, The Process Ninja, dishing out some juice on why companies loose customers through bad processes (or worse, bad employees).

IBM Buying Lombardi Software - peHUB - So IBM has shelled out an undisclosed sum of money to buy up Lombardi and it's blueprint/teamworks software? Wonder what that will do to the market? I'm sure we'll hear more about this over the coming months.

Oracle to buy Metastorm? - Mark McGregor's Process Performance Blog - Following the IBM purchase of Lombardi yesterday Mark McGregor has done some crystal ball gazing about where the next big consolidation move might come from in the industry, and his answer might surprise a few people.

Integrating Process and Rules – Part 1 « BPMS Watch - Bruce Silver gives us some truths about linking business process and business rules together in the first of a two part series.

1 The Process Cafe Posterous is a place for linking to process related articles written by other people that don't merit a full post on the Process Cafe but are still worth your time reading.





Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project Second Edition' is now available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



The Unseen side of Process Projects - Part Four : Measures

This is the next in a series of posts focused on process work. Particularly process work being carried out in projects. It links in closely to my eBook ‘The Perfect Process Project’, version 2 of which has been released. If, after reading these posts, you want to purchase a copy of the book please feel free to click over to the appropriate page and do the business.

The Unseen Face of Process Projects - Part Three: Process Ownership

This is the next in a series of posts focused on process work. Particularly process work being carried out in projects. It links in closely to my eBook ‘The Perfect Process Project’, version 2 of which has been released. If, after reading these posts, you want to purchase a copy of the book please feel free to click over to the appropriate page and do the business.

If you are already a subscriber to The Process Cafe you will receive these update automatically in your RSS reader or inbox. If you don’t already subscribe you might wish to do so by clicking the RSS icon on the right of this post.

Friday Review 11th December 2009




Here are some of the links posted over on the Process Cafe Posterous this week1

AIIM BPM Industry Watch 2009 Report – Released - The 2009 AIIM BPM industry watch report is now released. Register and download your copy from their website now. I'll be making reference to some of the figures in this in an article I'm writing for the new year. Stay tuned for more.

A history of manufacturing & ERP software - Timeline - This came across my desk recently and - whilst it isn't strictly a process related matter,  I wanted to send it out to you all to see if we can 'crowdsource' a more complete and definitive answer

Process Mash-up's - Love 'em or loath 'em - Why - when demonstrating a process 'application' - whether a mash-up or a BPMS developed application, is it always a document approval that is modeled?

Extending ARIS Business Simulator- A video on Simulation in the ARIS BPM toolset, produced by the company that wrote the original ARIS simulator software

Business Process Outsourcing Mistakes /  IT Outsourcing Magazine - 10 mistakes that companies doing BPO make. Some of these are excellent ('New process and old process co-exist together') but all are worth reading.

Survey Highlights Why Johnny Can't Manage a Business Process | Blogs | ITBusinessEdge.com - Focusing on the needs of the customer is the easiest way to manage your business process effectively.

The Evolution of Organizational Process - IT Management - An interesting piece on process management and the challenge of managing these organisationally (A topic I will be covering in my series 'The Unseen Side of Process Projects')

Questetra BPM Suite, Workflow for Google Apps - A multi-part walk though focused on how to define and map your business processe. It's a little "Process 101" but well written and accurate. Not too sure about the quality of the graphics and layout though. You decide.

1 The Process Cafe Posterous is a place for linking to process related articles written by other people that don't merit a full post on the Process Cafe


Continuing Monday :

A  series of posts on The Unseen Side of the Process Project. Don't miss out on this new set of articles identifying key process project failures and how to deal with them. Make sure you are subscribed either through RSS or email. Click the appropriate icon on the right of the screen to subscribe.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford




The Unseen Face of Process Projects - Part Two: Managing project change

This is the next in a series of posts focused on process work. Particularly process work being carried out in projects. It links in closely to my eBook ‘The Perfect Process Project’, version 2 of which has been released. If, after reading these posts, you want to purchase a copy of the book please feel free to click over to the appropriate page and do the business.

The Unseen Face of Process Projects - Part One: An Introduction

Background :
This is the first in a series of posts focused on process work, particularly process work being carried out in projects. It links in closely to my eBook ‘The Perfect Process Project’, version 2 of which has been released. If, after reading these posts, you want to purchase a copy of the book please feel free to click over to the appropriate page and do the business.

Over the next four weeks I am going to be publishing posts which relate to each of the five entries listed below. I’ll be discussing the type of problems that occur along with how to solve them or what to do to address these issues. If you are already a subscriber to The Process Cafe you will receive these update automatically in your RSS reader or inbox. If you don’t already subscribe you might wish to do so by clicking the RSS icon on the right of this post.

Hot topics this month at The Process Cafe (November)


After checking my visitor logs recently I wanted to let you know what were the 5 most visited pages over the last 30 days (i.e during November) here on the Process Cafe



  1. Review:  Lombardi's Blueprint software
  2. Your criteria for choosing a BPM tool
  3. What's the difference between ERP and BPM?
  4. Pay me now, Pay me more later
  5. Why are the 5 'Hot' questions hot?

Be sure also to check out the categories listed on the left and see posts related to my thoughts on BPM, case studies, business rules and the marketplace





Starting Monday :

A new series of posts on The Unseen Side of the Process Project. Don't miss out on this new set of articles identifying key process project failures and how to deal with them. Make sure you are subscribed either through RSS or email. Click the appropriate icon on the right of the screen to subscribe.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



Friday review 4th December 2009

Here are some of the links posted over on the Process Cafe Posterous this week

Who Needs Processes - Watch the Ninja on BNet (The Process Ninja) - Watch Craig Reid - 'The Process Ninja' - discussing processes in the small business as well as 'Outside-In' thinking.


Process Management Brings Significant Savings to Small Businesses- Short article on eVision Services' attempt to automate small business processes using Metastorm's Provision tools

Case Management isn’t BPM « Andrew One Degree’s Blog - Andrew Smith at his One Degree Blog discussing why some companies are disappointed with their BPM tool because what they've actually been sold is a Case Management tool. Is there a difference? If so, what? Be sure to read the comments as well.

Process POV: Who Has the Truth?- A short but interesting discussion on the concept of 'Process Point of View': How you perceive the process depends on your point of view.

Should You Double Your Bet on BPM? - Jim Sinur at Gartner talks about the state of BPM and whether investing in a BPM solution or project is the right way to spend your money in 2010

The New Gartner EMEA Analyst - Gartner Blog Network- Gartner's new EMEA BPM Analyst. Anyone working in this space in Europe, the Middle East and Africa will probably come across John and his writings at some point from Feb 1st 2010

Approaches to Business Process Management (BPM) - Some interesting thoughts about the different types of BPM that have been identified. Worth a read to see the thinking behind the classification.

BPM: don’t be the last one without it - A quick post from the Metastorm Because Process Matters blog on the business ROI of BPM projects. As far as I am concerned, anything that can encourage the uptake of BPM is a good thing





Starting Monday :

A new series of posts on The Unseen Side of the Process Project. Don't miss out on this new set of articles identifying key process project failures and how to deal with them. Make sure you are subscribed either through RSS or email. Click the appropriate icon on the right of the screen to subscribe.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



The Perfect Process Project v2: Just released


I am pleased to announce the release of "The Perfect Process Project v2". This is an update to my process eBook released last year.

Anybody who has purchased the original 'Perfect Process Project' eBook and registered for updates will have automatically received the latest version of this book last week. For anyone who hasn't got a version of this book feel free to head over to the eBook page and get yourself a copy.


What are the changes?
The changes are quite minor. There have been a few grammar and typographical updates. But there is a new section on 'What the movie 'Office Space' can teach us about following process' as well as some interesting observations about the role of change management in making process projects successful.

This eBook will take you through the main problems with process type projects and help you understand real solutions to the key problems.

For those of you who bought V1, thank you for purchasing the book. If you wish to purchase a further copy of this book please do so by clicking this link to go to 'The Perfect Process Project' purchase page. Better still pass this link onto a friend or colleague who might benefit from it.






All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford




Who's running your process project - The Chicken or the Pig?


Over my 20-odd years in the business I have worked on countless projects. Most of them have been deemed to be ‘successful’ (sometimes in the context of ‘We put a project in place to implement xyz and we have implemented xyz therefore the project has been successful’) and a number of them have, unfortunately, been unsuccessful. It is always easy in hindsight to look back and understand what it is about a project that made it less successful than it may have been - and the reasons are numerous. But in my experience the main reason that a lot of projects fail is change management (or lack of it). I have written about this previously. What I want to do today is to look in a little more depth at one facet of change management which is - in my opinion - a prime candidate for ‘reasons most projects are unsuccessful': Lack of senior management buy-in.

Friday Review - 27th November 2009

Here are some of the links posted over on the Process Cafe Posterous this week


Green savings with BPM and EA Interesting post from Metastorm's Laura Mooney about green initiatives and how they can be gleaned using BPM and EA

The "30 second" 2-minute silenceAn excellent process control: Designed to stop a problem, but with an override capability if needed.


How Will BPM Deal with Pattern Based Strategies (PBS)? - Thought and comments from Gartner about the use of Pattern based Strategies and their link to BPM


BPMN vs BPEL: Are We Still Debating This? « BPMS Watch -Bruce Silver on the debate between BPM and BPEL. Yes they are, in a sense, complementary, but is one easier than the other?


Creation vs. Evolution (a business process perspective) « Bizappia Perspectives - Some interesting views on BPM & business from the Bizappia blog


If it seems too hard, it is too hard (The Process Ninja) - The Process Ninja has a lightbulb moment when looking for.. a lightbulb. Some good thoughts here on customer service and thinking of things from the customer's point of view.

First Steps to BPM Analysis with the 5 Ws « SgIM - Sanooj Kutty at the SgIM blog posits a different approach to getting your requirements gathering down on paper. Rather than confuse everyone with numerous and complex versions of the truth just sit and ask the 5 W's - Who, What, When Where and Why. Simple. But is it effective?




Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project Second Edition' is now available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



Can you outsource customer service?

Just a question that occurred to me: Can you outsource customer service?

Outsourcing of business processes is becoming more and more prevalent. But the logical extension of this is that you can outsource your customer facing processes. After all this is what call centres do. So the question arising from that is 'Can you outsource customer service?'

Sure you can outsource the service function. But is this outsourcing the service?

I posted this question on a number of BPM/ process related forums. Here are a selection of the replies I received:

Is cost cutting the new BPM mantra?

It is a sad fact of life that some organisations pay an amount of 'lip-service' to BPM and the capability of process management. This is usually in the times of plenty when income is high and everything looks good with the world.

Having an efficient and cost-effective company is not high on their priority list as long as the revenue is rolling in. But when the market is down and income is drying up a lot of the same companies are looking at ways to reduce costs  increase revenue and positively impact the bottom line.

Friday review - What happened last week 20th November 2009

With the inclusion of posts on the Posterous Cafe,  this will be a regular weekly consolidation post highlighting some of the key entries made on the Posterous Cafe that may have escaped your attention:



Business Intelligence - A Practitioner's Thoughts: Bounded Rationality, BI and Beyond -10 'Did You Know?'s related to BI and the BI marketplace. Wonder how much of this applies to BPA/BPM as well? I would imagine the sections on the cloud are particularly relevant


BPM: Something for Everyone - BPM from a Business Point of View - More from BPM Basics for Dummies, but don't let that put you off


BPM fuels business growth | ITWeb - An interesting short article from South African using BPM technologies in the workplace


Process transformation - perspectives on "Business Process Management": Complexity Approach - A new perspective on organizations? - Great article from Roeland Loggen with some interesting perspectives regarding 'complexity' and how we might just be making things more complex than they need to be


Aligning Business Process with User Interfaces - Linking Business Processes and User Interfaces at Devoxx’09 A few interesting thoughts on the human aspect of business process design which is often forgotten









Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.




All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



Testing Time-Management Strategies - WSJ.com

Are things you need to get done falling between the cracks? Does taking an entire day off seem impossible?

Maybe you need a time-management system.

Using GTD, Pomodoro and FranlinCovey's Focus methods to determine which is more useful in managing time. (The answer is: Whichever works for you is the best - take bits from every one). A good read for you - especially if you don't have time to read it.

Autoposted from The Posterous Cafe

Pay me now - pay me more later

Here's the situation: You've documented some of your current processes, created your organisation chart, got a small team together to define your future state and now you're pushing them to finish this because you have an ERP solution waiting to be implemented with your processes. Congratulations you've fallen into the trap of "Pay me now, Pay me more later".  This trap occurs when you try to short-cut the whole process definition stage. You'll recognise this when you hear phrases such as "Why do we need a current state?", or "Let's define what we want our organisation to look like then define the processes"

'In Any Business, 60-70 % are Non Value Activities

A recent article I read was headlined "In Any Business, 60-70 % are Non Value Activities". Further investigation outlined the fact that this was related to the Indian health care system, but it did get me thinking about whether there is a similar percentage for other industries.

I don't think anyone would argue with me if I said that all industries have some sort of non-value added activities in their processes. My interest is in minimising these activities.

Of course Six Sigma specialises in identifying and minimising these, but the problem I have with Six Sigma is that it tends to focus on specific parts of a process rather than the process as a whole. This results in either a sub-optimised process (but one which can be easily measured and quantified) or problems being shunted further along the process chain in either direction (any Six Sigma black belts out there who have a different opinion are welcome to reply in the comments).

Friday review - What happened last week 13th November 2009

With the inclusion of posts on the Posterous Cafe,  this will be a regular weekly consolidation post highlighting some of the key entries made on the Posterous Cafe that may have escaped your attention:


TechPRSpider - Software: Skelta BPM unveils the Worlds 1st Hosted Business Process Management Evaluation Portal – QuickStart™ - A quick look at Skelta's hosted evaluation portal 'QuickStart'. Might be worth a look

How do I pair BPM modeling tools with an SOA?- Some interesting thoughts and opinions on this complex topic

Ten strong hints your enterprise may not have a BI strategy - Click the link for the remaining hints. Some of them are quite straightforward and self explanatory. But that doesn't mean they are wrong!

The Next Generation of Leadership - Interesting - if slightly misguided - discussion with Jim Clifton of Gallup. He is of the opinion that most of the process improvements that can be made have been made already. That's not my experience. Is it yours?

Why Process Barfs on Social - An interesting dissertation on linking social computing and business process together

When “PROCESS” is no longer a four letter word - Mark MacDonald at Gartner has an interesting perspective on 'process' in companies. His view is that many companies see process as a four letter word because they say that it stifles innovation and inspiration amongst other things. The thing to remember is that every company has processes, even if they aren't managing them appropriately. The key - as MacDonald says - is to harness the power of the process for the benefit of the company. Some good reading here

BAM vs. BPO vs. BPM vs. BPA vs. BPMS :: SearchCIO.com.au - All the usual suspects are on the list, which goes to prove that acronyms are more trouble than they are worth usually!


Why The Pursuit Of Innovation Usually Fails - Forbes.com - Excellent article from Forbes Magazine about why big companies fail at innovation. Not strictly a process issues, but process is affected by it.


Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



BPM and Social media

I looked at this a while back and got no traction on it whatsoever. One problem I had was equating 'BPM' as a concept with 'Social media' as a concept. It seemed like they were too far apart
Sandy Kemsley has put together a presentation which touches on some of the main points regarding this:
  • Drivers for BPM: These include items such as 'Changing user expectation', 'trends towards greater collaboration', and 'Lack of agility in many current BPMS implementations'
  • Collaborative process modeling with points such as multiple people participating in discovery and modeling of processes
  • Collaborative process execution where users can step outside the structured process and create an ad-hoc collaboration

BPM and social networking
My takeaway from all of this is that the use of 'social networking' in a BPM sphere is rather more limited than I imagined, but does include a much broader definition of social networking. For example she mentions Google Wave as a tool to be used in process discovery as well as the use of forums to create external communities of practice. I don't discount any of these ideas but I don't specifically align them with 'social networking and BPM' With the broadening in the definition of Social Networking in this case I think it is a lot easier to classify items which were previously one thing as another (user forums and email, for example)

Summary
There is no doubt in my mind that the technologies and mind-set shifts that Sandy describes are having a profound effect on the way people do business today (or at the very least are building a foundation that will facilitate larger scale uptake in the near future), but whether this can truly be called 'BPM and Social media', I would question.


Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford






Free consulting - get it while it's hot!

The current free consulting offer is coming to a close.

At the moment I can offer one more slot free of charge so if you want to take advantage of this offer let me know as soon as possible.

Here's the deal:

I consult to organisations that want to get better. Companies who are in the grip of an economic downturn and who want to reduce their costs and overheads to increase and improve their bottom line. A lot of companies know how to do this (or think they do). But a lot of them don't know how to do it and need help.

According to Gartner, BPM is the most important business initiative on CIO and CEO's plates this year - maybe in a big way, maybe in a small way. Presumably this means that a lot of these executives are looking to get started in this. I believe that this is not just big businesses, but smaller ones too: the companies who are, say, mature businesses with less than 50 people. Or it could be the larger companies that are spread across different locations etc. Either way there is a lot of confusion about what needs to be done, what the potential problems are and how they can be approached.

So here's what I am offering:

If you are either:

a) Thinking about putting some sort of process improvement project together
b) In the middle of a process improvement project and seem to be stalled
c) Wondering what you can do to reduce costs and increase profit
d) Trying to document your processes and need someone to help with facilitating a process discovery session

- then let me know. I will come in and provide one day's consulting for you to help you understand what you need to do to get things started or what you need to do to make things better in your current project. In fact anything you want to do with respect to process and BPM.

And I will do all this for free! (Considering my daily rate for this is approx £750, this is quite a deal). All you pay are travel expenses - and I'll travel just about anywhere to do this. Globally.

I'll even throw in a copy of my ebook "The Perfect Process Project" for you to keep and use as you see fit.

What's next?
If you want to take advantage of this offer then let me know via an email to G_comerford at GCP-consulting.com. Let me have your name, contact details, and some information about what you're trying to achieve and - if I think I can add some value to your efforts - I'll be in touch to help you.

That's it. No strings attached. No obligation. Obviously I would like it if you decide later on to bring me on board your project for some paid work, but there is no obligation to do so. Yes, your details will be added to my mailing list, but that's spam free and is only used to keep you up to date with developments in the BPM world. But that's it.

Think about it. Do you have anything to lose? Does anyone you know need something like this? Tell them too!

I look forward to hearing from you

P.S. Contact me now and see whether we can get something worthwhile moving in your organisation while this offer still exists


Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.



All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

See related info below



Processes by stealth - Gartner recommends it!

In a recent comment about how to set up organisational supports for BPM initiatives, Gartner's Jim Sinur remarked:

Establishing a process competency center is first prize, but you might have to sneak up on it by getting a small group of skilled process folks to work on a number of small projects before you put together a process program with clearly defined roles

I almost jumped for joy when I read this as it, basically, aligns with a concept I tried about 7 years ago known as 'Processes implementation by stealth'. The basic issue was that the company I was working for at the time had very little knowledge and understanding of how to start a process management capability. As a result they were reluctant to move forward with creating this in light of other, more pressing, business issues. To try and move things forward I became involved with a number of projects where we 'insinuated ourselves' into the project and started to define process type activities as part of this. For example I worked with a department that was looking to outsource a large part of the work they were doing to a third party organisation. I managed to convince them that if they had a neatly defined (and agreed) process map of what their department did, they would be able to take that to a prospective third party and easily identify the hand off points and the deliverables. As an added bonus we were able to remove a number of non-value-added activities as part of the process discovery exercise.

Over the course of a number of months we took this concept of process discovery by stealth and enlarged it to some more important projects. What this gave us a chance to do was to identify a business case for including process work in all projects. Once that case was approved the organisation mandated this across all IT projects and the capability was started from there.
The end result is that a little bit of 'process management by stealth' led to a global process organisation being created where a direct approach to create that would not have happened. Ultimately the CIO took responsibility for the process capability and this gave us the senior management ownership that we needed to make this happen.

Processes by stealth - it can happen and it does happen. Where is it happening in your organisation? Or alternatively - where should it be happening in your organisation?

Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford



Friday review - What happened last week 6th November 2009

With the inclusion of posts on the Posterous Cafe,  this will be a regular weekly consolidation post highlighting some of the key entries made on the Posterous Cafe that may have escaped your attention:

Teamworks 7 BPMS Report - A report from Bruce Silver on Teamworks 7's latest update. If you're not following Bruce, by the way, you should be)

Time for the next generation of knowledge automation - Some interesting thoughts about EDM, complex event management, ERP and BPM from Haleyai.com

CIO: Don't attempt BPM system without mapping process flows - A neat little article from Niel Nickolaisen about how he learned the hard way that mapping process flows is a pre-requisite to attempting BPM

Piloting social media creates more problems than it mitigates - Some thoughts on the use of project pilots for social media projects, and how process issues mean they may just fail...

Process excellence: No loose change - A lengthy case study on achieving process excellence at a UK high street financial institute. A good read.


6 Business Process Management Best Practices - I'm not sure these would be called 'Best Practices'. More like common sense to me, but useful nonetheless.

What can BPM vendors learn from the iPhone? - Mark Mcgregor (Fellow BPM Nexus Board member) discusses the thing that Apple (in a saturated mobile phone market) did very well with it's iPhone that BPM vendors should look at. Some very astute observations here and something that I think more vendors should be focusing on.

Why are Business Rules Subjugated to Process Management When Business Rules Should be Leading Process Management? - Read the discussion around this topical question.


BPM Promises "Simplicity" In 2010. Is This "Hope We Can Believe In" Or Still A Pipe Dream? -
A thought provoking and well thought out piece by Mr. Richardson on upcoming hot topics for BPM. Take 5 minutes to read this, you'll thank me later.


Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

Hot topics this month at The Process Cafe


After checking my visitor logs recently I wanted to let you know what were the 5 most visited pages over the last 30 days here on the Process Cafe



  1. Tim Wilson shows us the top free bpm modelling tools
  2. What's the difference between erp and bpm?
  3. 5 Simple Questions to see if your Business Process can be modeled and Automated using Workflow Software
  4. Your criteria for choosing a BPM tool
  5. Review:  Lombardi's Blueprint software

Be sure also to check out the categories listed on the left and see posts related to my thoughts on BPM, case studies, business rules and the marketplace

Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford



Process inconsistencies hit the customer... Again.

I rented a van last week. Just a standard Luton van. I used it for transporting some set pieces to the performance venue for a local group I am a member of.

When I went to the rental location I took my drivers license and the associated 'paper documentation' which is issued by the UK DVLA. This details all the endorsements "points" you have as well as your entitlements to drive (Motorcycle, Heavy good vehicle etc.)

I've rented vans from this location before and they have my details on file so I filled out the form, signed on the line gave them my credit card and went. The guy didn't ask to see my license or paper documentation but did ask if I had any endorsements since my last visit (which I hadn't).

This week I had to rent a van again now that the production has finished. I asked a colleague of mine to drive me to the rental location. At the desk the woman asked me for my driving license (Which I supplied) and for the paper documentation. I told her she didn't need it as the last time I rented a van I hadn't needed it and all my details were on file. She insisted that I needed to produce the paper documentation. I told her I hadn't brought it because last time I brought it to this same location I hadn't been asked for it.

She insisted that she needed to see the paper documentation before she could rent the van to me. I told her that I didn't have it with me and she would have to phone the DVLA to get the authorisation (This is a 'fall-back' process which has been put in place for just such a situation)

"It's Sunday" she said. "The DVLA isn't open"

So, in other words, because she is following a different implementation of a standard process, I would have to schlep myself back home (with my colleague who had dragged himself out of bed early on a Sunday morning) just to get a piece of paper which I had told her was all in order and wouldn't need to be checked when she got it.

Stifling the urge to strangle her (or at the very least to use harsh language) I went back and got the documentation and the deal was done.

But it got me thinking. Where did the process break down? I had taken the right documentation last week but hadn't been asked for it. Obviously it wasn't needed as part of the process otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take the rental van. If this was my first time renting with them then this would have been different, but because they had my details on file the process was modified. If a licence had been needed to rent a van the process would have stopped me from taking the van away when it wasn't presented, like a credit card. A credit card was needed to rent the van. If I hadn't taken a credit card then I wouldn't have been able to rent the van. Therefore the credit card was needed, but the license wasn't. It might have been desired, but it wasn't needed.  If it wasn't needed, then I shouldn't have had to schlep back home to pick up the documentation this week.

If, on the other hand, the first guy had made a mistake and let me take the van without seeing the licence - despite the fact that it was needed - then their internal process is broken to such an extent that a major check such as this was bypassed. Either way this company has a problem.

As a customer the aim of the company should have been to make my interaction with them as painless and as rewarding as possible - especially in a service industry. But this company obviously doesn't work that way. To quote the BPM guru's on the web 'The company doesn't use 'outside-in' thinking". It's one of the process maxims: 'Keep it as simple as possible'. Having my details on file was meant to keep things simple. Requiring me to produce additional documentation was complicating things when it wasn't needed.

Should I avail myself of their services the next time I rent a van, or should I go elsewhere?

Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford



Why are the 5 'Hot' questions hot?

I wanted to take a few moments to pass on my thoughts about a post I read last week. This post was from Jim Sinur and related to his thoughts on the 5 Hot Questions you should be asking about BPM.

According to Jim the 5 questions that came out of discussions held at Gartner's BPM conference and symposium were:

1 What are the Benefits of BPM?
2. How Should I Get Started?
3 How do I set up Organizational Supports?
4. Which BPM Technologies Should I Use?
5. How do Business Rules Help BPM?

Now I don't know about you but I think that at least four of those questions are non-specific enough to be used for any capability. Think about it. If you were thinking setting up a brand new widget manufacturing capability the top questions you would ask yourself are "What are the benefits of this?", "How should I get started?", "How do I set up the organisational structures?" and "What technologies should I use?". The only question I see in the list that I feel is specific just to BPM is the final question relating to business rules.

Maybe the take-away from this is that there are a generic set of questions that need to be asked for all capabilities that are being proposed. But as Jim has indicated that these appear to be 'hot' questions from Gartner customers can we assume that they are the ones that are currently in the forefront of businesses minds?

Jim does go on to actually answer these questions in a brief way. Like me, he is aligned with the concept that BPM can be a profit centre and reiterates this when talking about the benefits of BPM. He says
Based on surveys, award programs and inquiries, we are seeing rates of return north of 20% and payback periods less than one year for larger efforts and less than 90 days for more scoped efforts
That's pretty impressive.

Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.


All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford  




Friday review - What happened last week 30th October 2009

With the inclusion of posts on the Posterous Cafe, hopefully this will be a regular weekly consolidation post highlighting some of the key entries made on the Posterous Cafe that may have escaped your attention.

What is ITIL? - A post from the ARIS BPM community which focuses on ITIL V3 and lays the foundation for further posts relating to the use of ITIL within the ARIS ITIL Reference Model

Pegasystems merges Agile methodology with BPM - A software update from Pegasystems which incorporates agile methodologies with BPM itself. Not totally sure of the value of this as it seems to be expanding the software to do things outside it's core competencies. If you know better let me know.

Do Process Exchanges really work? - A debate topic from Jim Sinur about whether vendors should swap processes as a means of preventing reinventing the wheel, or whether this won't work in practice. What do you think?

IBM Congos 8 mash-up Service - An article identifying new improvements in the SOA space from IBM/ Cognos

'Why processes not technology will drive business improvement: A very interesting article (From Computer Weekly) about the movement away from 'IT Departments to 'Business Process Departments'

What are the hot questions in BPM? Gartner's Jim Sinur posits 5 questions that need to be asked in relation to BPM as a capability now that it is becoming more and more mainstream. Personally I think at least 4 of them are 'generic' capability questions, but Jim answers them nonetheless.






Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.



For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

"Tone from the top" - is your project already doomed?

I was in discussion yesterday with a senior manager at a major international bank. They have set up a worldwide business process initiative and were looking for people with my skills and experience to come on board to help. I told them I was happy to do so, and we discussed terms etc.

The main reason for the discussion, though, was for them to understand my skills and expertise when it comes to processes. Obviously they have never met me and they don't know whether I am up to job they were offering. As such this was really a job interview. One question they asked actually got me thinking about a situation which I wanted to discuss with you today.

The questions was "What is the main stumbling block you have encountered when trying to implement a BPA initiative across a large organisation?". The answer to this was actually really, really, easy. It's the same answer that I would give to the questions "What is the main reason a lot of projects do not achieve successful completion?". The answer is 'change management"

I told him that the single most important thing to have in place to ensure the success of such an initiative was a good level of change management. It is too easy when working in a small project of 10 to 15 people to forget that what you are defining and mandating may affect thousands of people in the organisation. In the case of the last company I worked at as an employee they had 45,000 people in their employ. We would be directly affecting a large proportion of them and we were relying on our ability to sell the proposition as a means of making it work. Suffice it to say we had problems.

But as I was talking about this it occurred to me that there was another way of thinking about this. It is a method which is mentioned in my book "The Perfect Process Project" and it is completely applicable here: "Tone from the Top" or senior management buy in.

Let me explain.

Several years ago, at the company I was working in at the time, the top four senior managers in the organisation had a meeting. They were the CEO, the CIO, The VP of finance and the VP of Manufacturing. At this meeting they decided between themselves that they were going to replace all the legacy finance and manufacturing ERP software with a global implementation of SAP. Shortly after this meeting they sent a memo out to all their direct reports telling them "You will implement SAP". These direct reports, in turn, sent this down to their subordinates telling them "They guys at the top want SAP installed. Make it happen". Before long I experienced things such as line managers funding and attending SAP training internally so that they would have knowledge and expertise when the package came on line. Everyone had the 'let's implement SAP' mindset. It was all being led by the 'tone from the top' i.e. the senior management buy-in.

Can you imaging the difference if someone at a lower level had tried to sell this to his people without getting the buy-in from people above him? Can you imagine how much more difficult it would have been to get people motivated if there wasn't someone at a senior level - someone with a written and agreed objective linked to their performance payment - who had made it his mission to make this happen? And now we had the top four people in the organisation buying into this. In words and in actions.

It made a huge difference.

I will say, at this point, that I was one of many people who didn't think that the SAP decision was the correct one. The business case was weak, the benefits were ethereal and the timescales were unrealistic (and indeed with the benefit of hindsight we were proven correct). But this didn't detract from the fact that everyone in the organisation was aligned behind the senior management in making this happen.

Compare this with the previous organisation I worked with. We had been tasked with implementing an ERP system across 13 European countries in 18 months. This was a difficult task at the best of times, but things were about to get a lot worse.

At the project kick-off meeting in Germany (an affiliate that was already running a well established - German - SAP implementation) we were introduced by the Finance Director as follows "Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you for attending this kick-off meeting today. Gary and Luc are here to put this package in and replace our SAP system. We know that it isn't as good as SAP and we will lose a lot of functionality because of it, but let's let them explain it to us". He then turned around and sat down leaving my boss and I to try and salvage the situation. Talk about the wrong 'Tone from the top'! Needless to say that was a long, drawn-out and difficult implementation.

As you go about your work today - especially those of you working on projects and implementations - ask yourself how many of them are actually being championed by a senior manager in the organisation. A senior manager who has his performance measured on the success or failure of this project. If you don't have one in place, ask yourself if the project is as successful as it could be.

Photo of Barack Obama courtesy of Pete Souza, official White House photographer


Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.



For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

The Posterous Cafe

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed a couple of things recently (other than the change of template for this blog)

1) I'm posting a lot more shorter articles than I used to
2) These articles generally finish with an 'Autoposted from The Process Cafe Posterous' entry at the bottom of them.

These two items are related. Using Posterous - the email-in blog application - I have created a blog that I can use to automatically post relevant articles I find. These may come from Google reader, Friendfeed, Popurls or just general browsing. If I see an article that is relevant that I wish to comment on I will post it the The Process Cafe Posterous. From there it will go out on twitter to the 700 or so followers I have there. If the article is particularly interesting I will also then autopost it from Posterous here to the Process Cafe. So any article with 'Autoposted from The Process Cafe Posterous' can be accessed directly on my Posterous blog.

You might want to have a quick look at the Posterous blog as it does contain a few links that don't appear here on the Process Cafe. Think of it as 'bite sized Process Cafe'

(By the way if there are articles I note that I just recommend you read without comment these appear in the 'Process Articles in the News' section in the right column of the Process Cafe.)


Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.



For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford

Why processes, not technology, will drive business improvement

Businesses are constantly seeking new ways to maximise their profitability and this is never truer than in today's tough economic times, writes Alan Bowling, chairman of the SAP UK & Ireland User Group.

Traditionally, businesses had large IT teams with a complex range of skills that could keep systems constantly in tune with the changing needs of the organisation.

However, over the next few years we will see a shift in the types of businesses that use IT successfully and the ways they use it. Those that will likely be most successful will be those that focus on modelling and modifying their business processes rather than concentrating solely on the technology.

This is a very interesting article (From Computer Weekly) about the movement away from 'IT Departments' to 'Business Process Departments'. The author contends that software will become so sophisticated in the coming years that a need to manage the application and technology will be replaced by a need to manage the actual process that is being modeled. I'm not totally aligned with this as a concept (because I firmly believe that the capability is what should be managed rather than the underlying technology), but it is interesting to note that a move such as this would effectively spell the end of traditional IT departments and replace them with something more akin to a Business Process Management capability.

Your thoughts on this?

Autoposted from The Process Cafe Posterous

What are the Hot Questions in BPM?

We are at a significant point in the maturity of BPM as a management discipline. The organizations that have been leading the charge in BPM are taking it to a new level, hence my previous posting on What’s Hot in BPM? http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2009/10/22/whats-hot-in-bpm/

There is also a new wave of fast followers that are lined up to jump on the BPM bandwagon and they have been the dominant question askers at our most recent BPM and Symposiums here in the U.S. I’d like you to see the top 5 hot question areas for BPM that I have sensed.

1 What are the Benefits of BPM?

2. How Should I Get Started?

3 How do I set up Organizational Supports?

4. Which BPM Technologies Should I Use?

5. How do Business Rules Help BPM?

Jim Sinur from Garner has asked 5 hot questions related to BPM. These have come primarily from the Gartner BPM conference held recently.

I'm interested to hear if you have any additional questions that are important to you as an organisation, or more importantly do you have some good answers to these questions? It strikes me that these, generally, are fundamental questions that would be asked of any new discipline being brought into an organisation rather than just BPM.

What are your thoughts?

Autoposted from The Process Cafe Posterous

"Things they are a changing" at the Process Cafe

Chiemsee - Bayern - DeutschlandImage via Wikipedia

The Process Cafe is approaching it's third year in existence (2.75 to be strictly accurate) and I figured it was about time to see if I could change the layout and design of the site.

To be honest I was never really taken with the old 'dark blue background' look of the site but - of the basic templates provided by blogger (who host this site) - it was probably the one I thought reflected the style of the site the best.

Had I been on Wordpress I would have been using the Thesis design that has become very popular so I was overjoyed to discover that a Thesis style template has been ported across to Blogger free of charge via Blogspot-templates.org.

After spending about an hour transporting it across and working out the widgets etc. I'm now happy to launch the new look and feel of 'The Process Cafe'.

There will probably be a few minor adjustments over the coming days as I work out what tweaks need to be made, but this is the basic new structure of the site.

UPDATE: "Related Posts" are now added to the bottom of every post on this blog. See other posts similar to the ones you are reading. Also the site navigation has been made easier by displaying the archive by category rather than by date (See the left of the page)

You'll notice there is now a menu at the top. I will probably be adding a couple more entries to that as I work out what is best for you, the reader. In the meantime there is a link to my consulting site, and contact details for me.

If you have any feedback please let me know (click on "Contact' above or leave a comment below)

If this is your first time here and want to subscribe please click the RSS icon on the right

P.s.. Don't forget the Free Consulting offer is still valid until at least the end of October 2009!




Reminder: 'The Perfect Process Project' is still available. Don't miss the chance to get this valuable insight into how to make business processes work for you.

Click this link and follow the instructions to get this book.



For more about me check out my "About Me' page

All information is Copyright (C) G Comerford