This opportunity ends on March 2nd, so don’t get caught posing  

See the link for all the BPM Summits for 2012 http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/12/01/book-the-dates-in-your-diary-for-the-upcoming-bpm-summits/

The Situation:

Imagine an influx of complex work that requires specific advanced skills at specific times. I am ware of several implementations where organizations are faced with the daunting task of keeping the skills up to date in real time while dynamically allocating work based on incoming streams, incoming events, timing based SLAs, and temporary chokepoints.

The Answer:

Several organizations, that I am aware of,  have BPM technology that evaluates the complexity of the work (case) and assigns work to the best person with the skills necessary to complete the case or a portion of the case. When the best resource is not available, the next best resource is selected (maybe just completed training with no experience). When the work is accomplished and the case is judged to be a high quality state, the resource skills inventory is annotated to now include the latest experience for that resource. If a case gets hung up it also goes through the same triage process.

Net; Net:

This is a great use of BPM that leverages data driven allocation and near real time updating. While this is not intelligent business operations, per see, it’s on the road to applying more experience(represented by dynamic data) to work allocation and intelligence.

The above success story has been summarized and made anonymous to get the essence of the success documented quickly. The source of this success story is from two technology providers (Appian and Kofax/Singularity). Each have customers leveraging this approach.

Health Workbench Approach:

This organization leveraged the strength of their iBPMS to create a health portal which became each individuals window on their own health. This organization created a custom health communication platform (workbench like with multiple customized tools) for each client/person managing their own health. This workbench included, but was not exclusive to providing a dashboard of recommended activities and actions. In addition rewarded activities were highlighted and encouraged. In some cases these activities were considered advisory and optional, but in other situations the actions were considered mandatory. Either way, individuals were provided custom content and participation groups to explain and encourage each action.

Complexities:

This approach requires a significant amount of configuration/rule changes in a narrow  time to change window as more clients and participants are added. In addition, current clients can be tracked  in real time and with instant preference changes. All of this has to happen on diverse technology platforms with diverse media types.

Results so Far:

The amount of change supported has increased five fold, new product types have been invented, and the cost of change has been reduced by 50% overall because less time is needed for each change.  All of this was accomplished without dedicated time windows for change because of visual validation and the speed of change inherent in the iBPMS.

Net; Net:

The result is a continuum of health customized by client and individual resulting in a better health experience. This is a truly adaptive and  mass customized platform that can be leveraged for increased life quality and longevity.

The above success story has been summarized and made anonymous to get the essence of the success documented quickly. The source of this success story is a technology provider named Pegasystems.

The Business Problem:

This organization used a network of distributed businesses to reinsure risk. The company had the challenge to determine if it could broker risk with the most solid of partners. Quite often this need to happen quickly. It was all done backroom and not in a visible fashion. So each deal was costly and sometimes not timely enough. The requirements were demanding. The customer and broker could override any deals based on extensive qualitative and performance information about carriers in context. Automation was desirable, but the broker still stays in control despite any number of communications and conclusions. This meant that context had to be captured to insure auditability.

The BPM Solution:

Deliver “Knowledge in Context” while continuously updating a dashboard with drill down detail on client carrier selection decision, margin information, priorities, reason for selection. At any time comprehensive analytics on broker performance, carrier performance, customers, deals, client priorities had to be available. Additionally, this brokering capability needed to be on a global (Multilingual) platform, with opportunity for local behavior through rules, “skins” etc.

Net; Net:

The network of executives was pleased with the visibility this automation provided and the “back room” culture has been changed forever. Going forward this is a good base for a variety of analytics going forward. This could easily grow into an intelligence business operations solution when real time events will trigger automatic analytics, intelligence and actions.

The above success story has been summarized and made anonymous to get the essence of the success documented quickly. The source of this success story is a technology provider named Kofax/Singularity.

Managing the Surgical Theaters:

The first step in this intelligent operation revolves around looking forward to the scheduled surgical procedures for the coming day. The first step is to use simulation to schedule the surgical theaters and to make sure the right resources are in the surgical theaters at the precise moment they are needed. Patients and doctors are the primary scheduling components, but there are specialty nurses, attendants and workers that need to be scheduled in sequence. Surgical theaters need to be prepared for each medical procedure and different procedures require different equipment and different sub-procedures. Early every day a simulation is run with resulting charts to show the optimal sequence and overlaps in a time line fashion.

Managing the People Involved:

Each patient, doctor and worker has there individual time line with each staging area and surgical theater shown as a “going in” plan for every individual possible. If everything goes to plan the resulting simulation is the guide for optimal resource utilization with minimal impact on the patient while being cognizant of leveraging the rarest skills the best way for any given day.

Managing the Dynamic Surgical Procedures:

What make this IBO better than those I have seen in the past in the surgical management process is the ability to tag every person with a tracking device to watch the actual movement and completion points (milestones) with visible tracking on top of the original plan. So the state of the patient, doctors, nurses and support staff is know in “real time”. If something happens that takes the plan in an unexpected direction (longer procedure; patient reaction, worker delays and equipment issues), the plan can be re-simulated based on the complications/deviations and project a new plan in “near real time”. 

Net; Net:

This results in a safer and better experience for the patient in tandem with dynamic resource scheduling. Going forward each piece of equipment and it’s state will be known to predict potential unexpected/undesired states. For instance each scalpel will be tracked and it’s state of sterilization and factored into the original plan as well as the “real time” adjustments.

The above success story has been summarized and made anonymous to get the essence of the success documented quickly. The source of this success story is a technology provider named Bosch/Inubit. 

The iBPMS: Really?

With the emergence of social, mobile, presence and the cloud more people intelligence can be mustered to decisions, policies/rules, goals and radical process improvements instead of just polishing the stones (necessary, but not sufficient).  In addition, machine intelligence can be embedded and/or surround processes to assist the humans in a near real time fashion. While both of these trends will be strong for 2012 and beyond, the addition of context sensitivity/pattern recognition will be enhanced to detect expected and unexpected conditions in and around the processes. This will allow businesses to be intelligently reactive and proactive in certain situations.  The iBPMS contains strong aspects of all three, so this will become reality for some in 2012 and many in the up coming future. If you want to read Gartner’s view of the iBPMS see the following blogs and the research note entitled “Selection Criteria Details for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites”, published November 17th, 2011 as G00219274.

Additional reading:

http://my.gartner.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=256&mode=2&PageID=2350940&resId=1852115&ref=QuickSearch&sthkw=sinur

http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/08/08/next-gen-bpm-making-your-processes-smarter/

http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/08/23/next-gen-bpm-eye-candy-for-all/

http://blogs.gartner.com/jim_sinur/2011/08/15/next-gen-bpm-encouraging-your-processes-to-listen/

Net; Net:

The iBPMS is not for every organization, at the moment, but sooner of later organizations will be pushed to add intelligence to their processes, even if it is adding real time BI. For organizations that are not interested in adding intelligence into their processes, the traditional markets of BPMS, workflow and integration can help organizations to save money and make progress.  Over time the business pressure will drive organizations to the iBPMS.

1. Recovery from some real nasty health issues and back to full steam

2. Sherry and I are at the 13 year mark of our marriage

3. The kids are all gainfully employed and the grandchildren are doing well

4. Andrew took a couple of new contracts as an Art Director in the LA area (animation for games under NDA)

5. Despite a six month forced time off; the art work continues

6. Leading a small group in our home (church related)

7. Won an art accolade and put up my new web site. http://www.james-sinur.com/career/

Paintings:

Digital Art

This organization provides core logic for multiple verticals which can be customized for quick deployments initially and quick changes in an ongoing basis. This is what I call core logic with local variations. They leverage hosted pre-built rule solutions that are quickly tweaked. They and their clients can schedule rule changes without relying on their information technology departments. This allows for low cost changes within their pre-built verticals as well as for their down-stream customers. This allows for quick fundamental change that is self serviced. This allows their clients to provide “ the flavor of the month” for their customers. This has become so popular that their clients are providing the same change capability “on premise” for their customers.

The biggest hurdle is creating a cyclical change approach because changes can happen so quickly that people can’t keep up with the pace of change.

Net; Net:

Business rules enable business driven change at hyper speed, but watch out for organizational and people change dynamics.

The above success story has been summarized and made anonymous to get the essence of the success documented quickly. The source of this success story is a technology provider named IBM. 

Andrew hits hard on three basic beliefs, listed below. I would encourage you to read the article as it is crisp and concise besides being worth the read.

Measure what matters to customers,
Forge essential partnerships, and
Promote an enterprise view.

http://tinyurl.com/cog82b7

Effective Marketing Campaigns:

As you might imagine it is a challenge keeping the customer experience high and consistent throughout and worldwide organization. This organization wanted a consistent experience applied to marketing campaigns and the customer experience.  They started with a Cloud BPM deployment to handle merchandising promotions processes for various product lines.  They desperately needed real-time management visibility into campaign effectiveness. They needed to accelerate marketing campaign deployments by handling better handling “exceptions” (required adjustments based on different store geographies, etc.). And they needed analysis and reporting on KPIs to improve operational decision-making from one campaign to the next. IT just couldn’t put this anywhere near the top of the priority list, so they went cloud and drove it entirely out of the merchandise promotions business unit. The benefits received included centralized planning, management, communications and roll-out for product promotions, with the campaigns being centrally-driven by corporate Marketing, but easily customizable across global regions.

Effective Store Inspections:

As word of this success spread, other business units took notice. In particular, the group responsible for Store Inspections wanted the same level of speed, effectiveness and reporting. This is a crucial process (the customer experience in the retail outlets is a huge part of brand promise). As it stood, a limited number of inspectors were required to go to every outlet (there are over 15,000) at least once every 6 months, complete a paper form on-site, return to the office to key that form data into a backend system, and then wait to see what happened when they returned 6 months later. No status visibility for inspectors or store managers, no real-time data for Regional Managers on fixes or trends, no analysis of contractor effectiveness, and no time for inspectors to collaborate with store owners on issues and improvement plans.They issue appeared to be that even if all of this data could be incorporated into a BPM system, it would still require a process of manual form collection and manual data entry back at HQ.

The Solution:

Enter native Mobile BPM! Using only the Smart Phones and Tablets that inspectors are already carrying for their personal use, this organization is rolling out a mobile BPM process for store inspection data collection through a native mobile form. The data is automatically centralized at HQ with complete visibility, status updates, and metrics on time and effectiveness of corrective actions. Regional managers can perform trend analysis across their stores, and inspectors have freed up time to work more closely with individual store owners to ensure a consistently excellent customer experience across all outlets. BPM allows inspectors to use iPADs to capture in-store issues and upload pictures in real-time. BPM allowed inspectors to spend more time working with store owners, and real-time analytics will identify patterns with low quality suppliers etc.

Net; Net:

The combination of fast response to issues and consistently effective marketing campaigns has driven revenue for this organization. All of this is enabled by mobile input and visibility. There is a strong trend toward mobile, cloud and social BPM solutions going forward

The above success story has been summarized and made anonymous to get the essence of the success documented quickly. The source of this success story is a technology provider named Appian.