David W. McCoy
Managing VP
15 years at Gartner
29 years IT industry
by David McCoy | October 19, 2010 | 1 Comment
This just out… here’s the press release.
And here are the Top 10, directly from the public press release. The detailed content is being released as part of US Symposium in Orlando.
Category: Uncategorized Tags: symposium
by David McCoy | October 12, 2010 | 1 Comment
Consider how we have purchased fuel for our automobiles:
1962 – WE KNOW YOU! – “Hi, Tom! How’s Mary? And the kids? Great! Howsabout we check the oil again, Stevie… I want you to make sure Tom’s new Chevy is in tip-top condition. Yeah, that’s right. Wipe the stick with a clean rag each time. Yeah, that’s right. So, Tom… Howsabout you and me and the wives get together on Saturday for some bridge? Great! It’s our turn to bring the colas and chips. Okay, Stevie. Close ‘er up and get Tom one of those new keychains we just got in. He’s a loyal customer you know!”
1979 – WE KNOW YOU WON’T MIND – “No, Mac. You gotta lift the lever before it’ll start pumpin’ out the gas. Here’s whatcha do. You take the cap off – you ain’t got one of them locking caps do you? Ok, you take the cap off, you pick up the hose, insert the nozzle, lift this red handle, and then you start pumpin’. I used to do this all the time, but now I have to watch all these pumps. We hadda let Steve go, you know.. If you want, you can put some air in your tires. Here’s my tire gauge. You know… it’s kinda like you’re doin’ Steve’s job – I mean his old job. Kinda funny, ain’t it?”
1999 – WE KNOW NOTHING – “Speak louder into the microphone please. What? Okay, you want $20 of regular on pump 12. You have to come pay first. No, the credit card reader is broken. You have to come in to the store. Yeah, we’ve got air for 25 cents, but the machine is busted. Tire gauge? No, I don’t have one you can borrow, but I can sell you one. And we’ve got a special on drinks today. You can get a liter size cola for half off with a fill-up. If you want that tire gauge, you can find it next to the oil and the disinfectant. No. That’s busted too. Someone flooded it last night. No one cleans up around this place. No, man. Not me. You can go next door and use theirs.”
2010 – WHO THE HECK ARE YOU? – “Our premises are monitored 24×7 by Cybro-Centurian video monitors. Please enter the zip code for the card you are using. If you have a complaint, you can call 1-888-//////////. Follow us on Twitter! You might win “gas for life.” I’m sorry. No attendant is on duty.”
And you wonder why we need BPM now more than ever….
Category: Business Process Management (BPM) Tags: symposium
by David McCoy | September 29, 2010 | 4 Comments
Here’s a simple question, and don’t wuss out and respond with “Both, of course!”
Is your interest in BPM primarily for visibility or is it for control?
Visibility – Show me how things work, what I’m doing, how long it’s taking, where it might need help. Be my eyes.
Control – Automate me, guide me, direct me, step-by-step me. Be my brain.
These are radically different worldviews. What’s your PRIMARY motivation?
Once you determine your PRIMARY motivation, then tell me how well you are meeting it.
My gut tells me that most will say “We like VISIBILITY… but we’re doing more CONTROL than we want to.”
Again, any comments of the “Both” nature will be deleted.
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by David McCoy | September 26, 2010 | Submit a Comment
I spent all Saturday night in the ER, dealing with “an issue” with my arm. During that ordeal – as I waited to be triaged, admitted, examined, billed, etc – I came to a blindingly brilliant conclusion: Just like a career in the ER, Process Improvement is a permanent career!
I can spend the rest of my life working in “the field of process improvement” because there’s just so much left to do.
This observation was comforting, even as I watched my arm being poked, pumped and pilloried. I realized that I am never – in my lifetime – going to pick up the New York Times and see the following headline:
All Process Problems are now Fixed! Millions of “Process Experts” to be Unemployed!
There will never come a day when our skills are not needed. We could even follow Francis Schaeffer’s lead and examine this from a “scientific, philosophical and theological” viewpoint. The tools will change; the methodologies will come and go; the names we call ourselves (and other) will morph. But, a career fixing process problems is a long-term one. The day we shut down all Emergency Rooms (for lack of need, not for budget shortfalls) will be the day we declare the end to defective processes. That’s not likely to happen, now is it?
Note: You can interpret that Emergency Room sentence in two different ways: (a) a reality check on an impossibility and (b) a snide comment about ER workflow. You decide how you want to interpret it. I know where I stand on the issue.
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by David McCoy | September 22, 2010 | Submit a Comment
If you like to geek out your friends with your intense knowledge of unstructured processes, then you won’t be complete until you pick up a copy of Michael Polanyi’s book, “The Tacit Dimension.” First published in 1966 and reissued in 2009, the book is a hard – perhaps even vexing – read. It quickly dives into the ethereal and the nuanced, but it’s worth it. I own a tattered, old copy. You can have a crisp, new copy. Tacit knowledge is at the core of so many activities, it’s worth knowing more about.
Disclaimer: I receive nothing from your purchase of this book. Michael is not around anymore, so I won’t even get a kind letter from him. If you like the book, then I’m happy. If you slam it down in a gust of dismay and confusion, well… welcome to the club. Pick it back up and keep reading. Nothing good comes easily.
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by David McCoy | September 20, 2010 | Submit a Comment
This is purely anecdotal evidence, but 16.8% of the searches that lead to my blog are “BPM Certification” related. In order, the searches are:
The evidence is anecdotal because you really can’t conclude anything universal about this. If people are searching for “BPM cufflinks” and that phrase does not appear on my blog (until just now, that is), the search data would be zero. The search data only relates to what I’ve written about herein. However, I write a lot of “stuff” about BPM. So while “BPM cufflinks” only appears twice (so far), there are many BPM-related terms and concepts here that a search engine would love to eat.
So, I take this as indication of interest in BPM certification. But based on the questions that folks ask, interest is speculative, conditional, and tenuous. So, there’s work to be done here to convert interest to action, and to match supply and demand.
Your thoughts are encouraged.
Category: Business Process Management (BPM) Tags:
by David McCoy | September 10, 2010 | Submit a Comment
I’ve written a research note on the intersection of context and process, and it’s a compelling subject. It’s not interesting to say that context can benefit processes; that’s self-evident. Just imagine stripping context out of a process, and you can see why we take it as “a given.” What’s more interesting about the relationship is that process and context interplay based on fundamental characteristics of the process itself. In this note, I drill down on one such characteristic – degree of structure – and show that some processes benefit from context in ways that others will not and cannot.
If you’ve blended context-aware computing and BPM, then you’ll probably know what I’m talking about. The research note is due out on the 20th.
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by David McCoy | June 28, 2010 | 1 Comment
Process patents got a non-answer today from the U.S. Supreme Court. My attorney friends at Morris, Manning and Martin sent me their view of the ruling. [As a non-attorney, I don’t even pretend to grok all the nuances of patent law]. The MMM piece was great reading, and the most vexing thing that I saw is that the Court rejected the specific patentability question in a way that does nothing to answer the bigger issue about just what is and is not patentable when it comes to the “process” issues at the heart of the case. They took the easy way out, in my view.
To me, this is like answering the question, “Is she the best salesperson in Washington state,” by hemming and hawing, and then pointing out that she really lives in Vancouver, and therefore, she’s not even eligible. You don’t really answer the REAL question, now do you? But, it does shut everyone up for a while. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s just happened here, but – again – I’m not a lawyer.
Your thoughts on Bilski v. Kappos welcomed
Category: Business Process Management (BPM) Rabble-Rousing and General Hoopla Tags:
by David McCoy | June 7, 2010 | 5 Comments
Like my picture? 75.5 MPG isn’t too bad, is it? I actually hit 92 MPG, but the photo was too blurry to show.
75.5 Miles Per Gallon!
I’m a HERO!
Well, no… I was going down a mountain, using just enough gas to keep the engine turning. I was “riding the brake.” Going up the mountain – the other side of the story – took a LOT of gas. I didn’t show you the MPG on that one did I? Nope.
Now, if you’re measuring business process performance, and you only look at a portion of the process, you’re just fooling yourself. Just as 75.5 MPG is an unsustainable pace, subsidized by an “up the mountain” penalty, partial process metrics also mislead.
I’ve said it before: If you don’t view the entire end-to-end process as a whole, you’re going to get a misleading picture of your total performance. If someone comes bragging about how well “their part of the process” is performing, have them recast their performance in light of the full end-to-end performance. You might find a 75.5 MPG myth in your own performance numbers.
Category: Business Process Management (BPM) Tags:
by David McCoy | May 27, 2010 | 4 Comments
Where would you position BPM Standards on the hype cycle? Now, I’m not asking you to do my work; We’ve already written the research note and have a firm position that’s ready to go to print (to be delivered with our 2010 BPM Hype Cycle). But, I’m interested in your positioning.
Rules: Don’t single out a strong standard and don’t base your position on a weak one. Think of the collective term: BPM Standards. You may love BPMN 1.1 and that’s understandable. But don’t base your position on that. You may have scars from WS-BPEL, but don’t position based on that. You may be indifferent about BPEL4PEOPLE. But that’s not germane; Don’t count your wounds or praise on a case-by-case basis; focus on the collective term. How should one rank BPM Standards as a collective concept, a family of things, a cohesive hunk of cheese. What do you think of when someone says, “BPM standards”?
Here’s the hype cycle graphic. Where would you put the dot? Just give me the position name (e.g., post peak X%, etc.) And if you balk at positioning a collective dot, that’s still cool. I know I’m asking you to position The Rat Pack. It may not be fair to Sammy Davis Jr. and it can only help Peter Lawford, but those are the rules. Tell me where they go.
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