The Eclectic Zone

Claiming the blog at Technorati makes you do things! Guess there’s a reason, with the spammers, phishers and hackers…

So, here you go Technorati! This little post with one of your requirements to post a short code ZQEARKWAVWQK – no period there – a dot’s a character too, right? Let me make this bold so you see this – ZQEARKWAVWQK - again not ending with period. Having fun, ain’t I, with this? Now, please get me my claim to my blog! I’m the one who has written all this and I’m the one who is going to go back and click on that little button telling you I have done this, and that…

Wait, I’m not sure if you’ll look for this short code in the tags, so one little tag with your short code just to be sure, and you know what, I will add this to Excerpt too! (Not a spam, that!) And added to the title too. Okay, all set!!!

PS: Apologies (to all my other-than-Technorati visitors) if I disappointed you this time! Thanks for visiting,  do drop in again!!!

Good governance leads to good performance. BPM COE (Center of Excellence) is essential to an enterprise BPM strategy.

However, positioning of the COE within the organization is a key success factor. There are various flavors of BPM CoE that serve different purposes and most organizations would go through some of these before reaching the right positioning and right level of maturity. During my experience I have found various flavors of BPM COE – sometimes in combination, sometimes in progression.

Flavors of BPM Center of Excellence

The figure on the left describes these patterns of BPM COE, and I think it is pretty self-explanatory. Still, it needs to be pointed out that this is “not” a maturity model for a CoE. And there is not necessarily an entry-level pattern as Competency & Resource Management may look like. However, that one would make sense to start off with if the organization has no real experience with BPM.

A bit of description on these flavors, or patterns if you will:

Competency & Resource Management – Focuses on competency development and resource management, and formulating the knowledge frameworks, standards, methodologies and best practices. The primary focus being brainpower and not necessarily as a hub for all the hardware and software requirements too.

Solutions Center Model – for organizations that have a little better laid out plan on the iniatives on BPM implementations, this model would provide a more efficient delivery and governance around initiatives. This, however, still resides more on Technology side due to the nature of the projects.

Factory Model – This offers a better chargeback and resource usage mechanism between the business needs and Technology capability. This also works better for a more well-defined BPM strategy where the definition of the projects are more tuned to the business process objectives and enterprise strategy. This moves governance closer to business and a better handshake is possible.

Business Process Centric Factory – This is driven by the process centricity, the KPIs and the process improvement objectives. The Process owners more involved throughout the initiatives and really help focus on business outcomes.

Which flavor works best for an organization depends on variety of factors. The factors are so many that sometimes we see a combination of the 2-3 patterns in a CoE. For instance, I have seen two COEs operating in the same organization – one focused on the Process Definition and another on Process implementation – and there were still gaps on the execution & monitoring due to the lack of business owners’ involvement. In another place technology owned a Factory model based CoE and the projects looked more like IT implementations and less oriented to process improvement. While in another case, business started off with a COE and started driving some of the initiatives while technology was not aligned resulting in solutions not keeping pace with the business needs.

As I mentioned in the beginning Governance is key. CoE could lead to a well governed enterprise BPM strategy, but CoE plan also needs a good governance around it and right positioning in order to achieve that. Some thought must be given to which flavor of COE really does your enterprise BPM strategy need.

On a tweet-chat today, Connie Moore from Forrester mentioned that the entry price from one of the vendors for BPM in cloud is around 3K/month for a single process. Well, it’s not BPM but BPMS infrastructure usage on cloud in this case, that’s my best guess. But, let’s keep that point aside for now.

The immediate question that popped in my head was how do you decide on the pricing unit in this case. And since it’s the entry level I’m assuming it’s for the simplest of the processes but how do you define that?

I have come across many scenarios where a customer wants to price the BPMS implementation against the outcome/output as against effort. What it means is that they’d want to pay you by the number of processes/applications/(or whatever unit) delivered and executed for a predefined warranty period of time. While that itself is challenging [to price against a piece of process to be delivered], we have been asked by customers to also include hardware and licenses. That’s where the situations get more tricky.

For any vendor it’s easiest to price for the delivery of a process (that’s purely effort based scenario) and as long as you estimate it right you’re Okay. In case of execution of a clouded process unit you’re dealing with Fixed as well as variable costs as well as the time and magnitude factors.

That’s not new, one may argue. In any business we deal with the Fixed Costs and the variable costs per unit of the product produced & sold. The business runs based on simple equations of breakeven point and profitability per unit, that’s where economies of scale and everything else comes in. But, there you talk about the unit as a concrete tangible piece of output. It is defined well to the level of every auxiliary sub-unit that accompanies the unit sold. The same needs to be applicable here for the equations to work well otherwise it’s going to be a situation of going back to drawing board every time a new prospect pops in.

How do we define a process unit in this case? Every process, no matter how standard, has its own thumb-print in the organization. The benchmark of a simple process will require agreement on the number of steps (human & system steps), number of business rules, the data elements, the integration needs, participant requirements (users/groups/roles), the exceptional conditions, and multitude of other factors – all of which cannot be listed here. I have versions of spreadsheets going into myriad details that make me jittery every time a request for a quote comes in. On top of that, the Process Execution or Operations are driven by the organizational culture and consumer behavior too – even if everything else remains same this one aspect can throw your execution costs out of the window.

And unless we have defined the benchmark for the process unit, the numbers will keep getting thrown everywhere on the price per unit without any analytical value attached to them. Vendors can come and throw numbers in public while in reality the deals are signed on specifics of the processes with prospects where the works starts from scratch again. No restaurant menu cards or catalog based pricing yet in this business?

This needs no introduction, BPM in the cloud is the new buzzword. Articles over articles have been written over the advantages of Cloud Computing, and BPM has had its share of glory under the sun. And bringing these two together makes all the sense, with the repeatedly made argument that cloud addresses some of the key concerns on initial investments.

However, I have my own reservations on using the term “BPM-in-Cloud”.

The closest that comes to what’s happening on the ground is “Process-Modeler-as-a-Service” [Not BPA in the cloud, again!] and “BPMS-Platform-as-a-Service” or “BPMS-platform-in-the-cloud”. And this trend is expected to continue for the next couple of years. The true BPM-in-the-cloud (even as it needs to be clearly articulated while BPM may mean different things to different people from technology platform -to- discipline -to- methodology -to- business tool & so on) seems still far away. We don’t have all the ingredients in place, and don’t expect in the next couple of years,  to have any success with something like “Business-Process-as-a-Service” or “Business-Process-in-the-Cloud”, which should be a milestone for achieving BPM in cloud in true sense.

Here are some of the key reasons why I think BPM in the cloud is a little far away:

• The success stories of cloud and SaaS have been primarily in the areas where an end-to-end transaction can be defined specifically and managed outside the realms of the organization, and typically more related to an Application. Now, Processes are much more than applications, and BPM application (if at all there’s one) refers to the toolset used to help execute the processes that run across departments and applications. You’re not really using BPM if you’ve picked up an intra-departmental (siloed) or an application-specific process area.

• BPM involves various phases of the overall business management around a process area – Modeling, Execution, Monitoring, Improvement. For every one of these areas, toolsets exist and vendors in the area of BPA and BPMS are already developing the cloud capability but their focus on that front are more infrastructural or around the metadata to ensure multi-tenancy and informational security. In order for a single BPM platform to be able to be clouded, we would need a tie-in of all [or most core of] these phases in the cloud. [Otherwise expect a scenario where the operational data resides in the cloud but without the required analytics capability, requiring you to bring the sliced-&-diced data back to the client environment for analytics or a reverse remote access for the same. And this is just an example] All that would require current capabilities of BPM vendors developed further across the phases of BPM (leveraging CEP, Web 2.0, Social BPM, Analytics etc). Sounds like huge investments for vendors that only some of the biggies can probably afford.

• Most phases of BPM life-cycle are highly interactive with multiple departments across Business Owners, Operations and IT. So, we’re hoping that our collaboration tools are powerful enough to take care of some of these high-interaction scenario in a clouded environment. Or we need Social BPM to take an avatar and bless us quickly.

• I raised this question in an earlier post in my blog as to whether a process, before being clouded, would need to be at least “outsourceable”. Here, “outsourceability” would mean that process controls need not remain within the organization for most part. If you want to run the whole process in the cloud, this could come in handy. It’s another matter that most of us would be still happy if the BPMS and application is moved into the cloud while being accessed by the users from within the organization. But that won’t be called Process being clouded, in a similar sense as salesforce.com is able to move the transactions to the cloud completely. So, to take the point forward, even in something as mature as outsourcing of the processes, we have not seen end-to-end Business processes outsourced in mainstream businesses. Emphasis on End-to-end which is key for real applicability of BPM. As for processes with minimal human touch-points & more systems based transactions, it would be relatively easier to move it to cloud, while increasing the integration & information security challenges.

• And then, we have challenges on metering and billing. I see this as a big challenge since unlike transaction based pricing that some of the current cloud services offer, this one require a Process Instance or Incident or case based pricing. And most of these instances would go back and forth between the cloud and the client due to at least the decision-making involved. Plus, the complications of the SLAs governing those. And if you go for a user based or seat based pricing, it defeats the purpose in terms of objectives of BPM as well as cloud. You don’t want your KPIs to get so distorted over time that they are more governed by how much to pay the managing cloud vendor than which parameters are critical for your business process!

So, in my view an immediately acceptable outcome out of these cloud capabilities being built around BPA and BPMS platforms would be a faster proof of capability with a lower investment on silo-ed  or simple processes, without the high-end expectations of turning around the business process efficiency. It’s much bigger effort on capability building and convincing for an enterprise-wide adoption of Clouded BPA or Clouded Process Modeling, let alone BPM in the cloud.

Stardom often affects the effectiveness of a particular performance in the field of acting.

I was watching the second part of  ”Infernal Affairs” – a Hong Kong original (that inspired Martin Scorcese’s Departed, as I came to know later). I didn’t know any of these actors and which ones are stars! I wouldn’t know who is potentially the main hero, the negative character, a typical sidekick, etc just by looking at them. I had to really watch the performances – which were actually good throughout this well scripted, directed & edited movie.

It really helped to not know these stars as I was able to watch their performance in acting, and not the stars behind them.

To relate to how much it impacts the effectiveness of performance let me take few examples…

Amitabh Bachchan in Paa has been one of the most outstanding performances in acting but when I was watching the movie I was still trying to find the Amitabh behind the character. I was unsuccessful in my quest primarily due to the power of the performance but in the end I would have been better off just focusing on performance.

Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump & Leonardo in Blood Diamond could also potentially be victims of the same phenomenon but for their flawless performance.

When watching a performance (or a movie as a package), we would want the audience to flow with the writing, story and performances – and not get swayed by the preoccupations associated with the actors behind the performance.

So, I was able to enjoy ‘Infernal Affairs II’. I couldn’t anticipate what could happen, who will last the final moments in the movie (If I know who the main star of the movie is I won’t expect him or her to die early, will I? Some movie makers exploit this to great effect in shading typical villains positively or vice versa, and pulling the carpet from underneath the audience in a thriller!)

Stardom is not easy to handle for actors already and this one factor weighs heavily against them as for as evaluation of their performance goes. Audience look out for them more than their performance. An outstanding is minimum requirement for effective acting then!

My sister & her colleagues are part of a charitable NGO-NPO (Non Govt – Non Profit org) at Indore, somewhere in central India. An easily excitable bunch of people, and actually very excited about the work they do. She mentioned about a pretty successful outing they had with a seminar covering the teenage girls and their moms together. She talked about more seminars, and the efforts they were making in various charitable areas.

‘What do you try to achieve through these seminars?’ I asked, curious as always! Answer was not so straightforward, but ‘evangelization’ seemed to be the bottom-line. But, evangelization cannot be the objective, it’s the means to get people excited & aligned to what you ultimately want to achieve. If their objective is to get some commitment from people on contribution to the NGO objectives, the hit rate through these seminars is abysmal. A little number of people come to these seminars and go back to their routine.

I also notice that their communication – brochures, pamphlets, discussions, seminars – sounds the same all the time, more focused on what they are doing than what could get people excited about contributing. These NPOs don’t seem to be run professionally like businesses do!

I’m not saying these NPOs don’t have competent people, I’m sure they have and they must also be pretty proud about their intent, accomplishments, as well as own abilities. No doubt on any of this.

However, any profit-oriented organization also has pretty bright individuals and a highly driven mission statement with strong intent. Still, companies need the well-defined functional organization, Goals, Plans, Policies, Systems, Procedures, and above all a well-defined performance management system. And certain issues around Customer-orientation and Outside-In-perspective have been a challenge even for the mature organizations.

But what these (profit-oriented) business organizations do well is focus on building their core strengths. In order for the charitable NPOs to be able to do more, they need to come out of the vicious circle that revolves around being Charitable not only in the intent but in heart, blood, mind, every gene. I liken this to a pregnant mother who’s so altruist (feed-others-before-self category) that jeopardizes her own child while she’s feeding others in the family!

Would it be inappropriate if they pay a consultant to solve their marketing issues, for instance? Or establish a professional management structure that is compensated “as well” as in a start-up? What’s the harm in attracting professionals that work for themselves or for money, as long as their work could be aligned to the charitable motives of the organization?

These charitable NPOs really have to focus (their effort & money) on themselves to build their strength if they want to really serve the society and the world! This, without guilt! Some do, majority don’t!!!

We already know from Ram Charan how much a street peddler knows about the turnover and running a business. But, from what I saw today tells me he knows much more than just that…

I live in Dwarka (not the one made famous by Lord Krishna, this one is one of the suburb in New Delhi), some of the self-acclaimed educated lot call it home. The shopping complex (or the market) tells as much about the locale and the population. The book-selling hawkers on the roadside boast of the coveted business and hard-core literature stuff.

I was taking a post-dinner stroll when I got pulled by some stuff that one of these hawkers showcased. Before I get further into this, let me also mention that I’m talking about a 4ft x 4ft space on the floor where all the books are arranged on a mat [This has to be really quite portable as this guy may need to wrap up and run every time a constable - a cop - comes patrolling. Thanks to the business arrangements (!) the constable doesn't rough him up as many times as the government would like, or would they who knows ]

Right in the front he had couple of books on A R Rahman (who won 2 Grammys yesterday!), then few by Erich Segal (who died few days back), some Sherlock Holmes (recent movie release) and more stuff so current that would embarrass the Home page of professionally managed Amazon and the shelf space of Barnes and Noble…

The bookseller here is a 12-year-old who cannot read even his native language properly (forget about reading English). He knows most of these books by cover and designs. But, he knows about running this small business effectively.

- Shelf space is the key (He’s got space of 4×4). Use it for the customer-pull. Keep the current up-front.

- Manage Supply to demand (J-I-T anyone?) Grammy win for ARR and the time for the relevant books to his shelf = Half a day! Valentine’s day coming up – get more Mills & Boon already!

- Flexible Business model. This guy goes for any model that gets him his return for the day’s investment. Sells paperback, Second-hand (used), Lease, Supply-on-Order, Retail/Whole sale, and even free Home Delivery!

- Cross-sale!!! (You want Covey? Why don’t you take Tom Peters today, get this back tomorrow & I will replace with Covey by adjusting the price difference!)

- Knows his customer. Within few seconds he knows what you’re looking for without you saying anything. (Sir, do you want White Tiger. Booker winner sir, it is good.)

- Keep the store light and mobile (there’s a warehouse few steps inside)

And did I mention this 4×4 space seems to have almost all the books from my reading list on Amazon. Talk about targeting the segment! The same guy at the central Delhi market would be selling Playboy and How to learn English in 30 days!

Lessons learnt! Can we execute some of these from our 400×400 offices?

It really intrigues me how certain words become taboos, while some other (with the same meaning, mind you) remain acceptable in our civil society.

How is it that a certain word “sh!#” is a strict No-No, while “crap” is still acceptable? How about “Damn it” v/s “Darn it”. Both are just words formed by a combination of alphabets – in the latter example above it’s just one letter replaced with another!

Then, we have euphemisms for almost everything that may not sound so good to the ears or to the sensitive parts of our brain. Some of the euphemisms are needed to reduce the shock factor associated with certain events – our heart being so prone to such. So, we have phrases like “Passed away” or “is no more” instead of a crisp and straight “died”. So far so good, but then we take it a little too far with the literary exhibitionism of being good. If you’re good at heart you would use the right language as they say.

Well, obviously it is for the need for us to be accepted in the circles that we want to belong to. Broader the circle, more generally accepted the behavior needs to be. If you want to be popular with everyone in the world, better be clean as white (and that also explains why every popular celebrity has as many hate sites as fan sites – What one may like others may hate). And the so-called-right language and good mannerisms make for a good facade.  So, that explains why Euphemisms exist.

However, this turns upside down when one goes to a bar with a set of friends (smaller and specific circle). The behavior that is the minimum acceptable behavior outside the bar (that circle) can easily make you a laughing stock! The need for acceptability forces you to be something else. White is suddenly Grey, people doubt who you really are if you’re actually behaving (and may be you are!) all white!!

Okay, after that slight digression, I come back to the taboos. The taboos differ from place to place, age to age, gender to gender, and so on. We don’t have a reason to believe that sex was a taboo in ancient times, then it became a big one, and now it’s somersaulting into gaining a widespread & general acceptability as well – not everywhere but still in general. Certain things have always been sinful though – infidelity and theft, for instance.

But, not every taboo is equivalent to a sin and that’s where I get intrigued. It’s just the words and their usage that really intrigues me. We hear those “beeps” on TV and see these “wild” characters like #$% in print so often for things as mundane as someone talking about need to take a natural call. That’s so natural, why does it become a taboo? And again, why is it that “taking pi$$” is not acceptable while “answering a natural call is”?