SOA filling the Gaps

Ford assembly line, 1913 Source: Wikipedia Are traditional BPM solutions still relevant or new approach is a must? I am not the only one who asks the question above. According to Gartner's analyst, Janet Hill, Traditional BPM is the past and "Improvisational Process" is the future.  "Improvisational Process" is less structured and more Agile than  Traditional BPM. Traditional BPM aims at more Automation and Process improvement and kills Innovation.    Let us try to answer the question above. In order to understand the issue I will use an analogy between Software Development and BPM Software Development. First stage: Automation The Typical Software developed in the 1950s automated simple organizational tasks. For example, instead of calculating profits by adding data manually, the data was entered into the computer and a programed calculation routine was executed.  Another simple example is a report. Instead of writing it manually, including data an...

Recently I read a new Gartner Magic Quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is titled: Magic Quadrant for BPM-Platform-Based Case Management Frameworks  (12 March 2015).  It is a new Magic Quadrant relating to a subset of the Case Management market. Case Management frameworks is a growing market, which is important enough for producing a Magic Quadrant. The Magic Quadrant was written by Gartner's analysts Jannet B. Hill, Kenneth Chin and Rob Dunie.   What is a Case Management Framework? It is possible to build a solution based on Model Driven tools or on Coding tools or COTS (Commercial Of The Shelf).  if you need less flexibility COTS are better fit then modeling tool. Case Management Use Case is exactly the opposite of a fixed solution. It is management of complex and less structured Processes performed by Knowledge Workers. A Case Management Process include ad hoc decisions based on Knowledge, Content and interaction with other experts.   The Decision Centere...

Few days ago I published a post titled: BPM - Agility is a Must . In that post I explained why Agility is important in BPM Programs and Projects. I quoted two analysts firms: Aberdeen Group (ten years ago) and Forrester Research (2013). I did not quote the largest analysts firm: Gartner. I did not quote Gartner, not because their analysts' opinion is different. The reason was no quickly available source to quote. Today I read Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Intelligent Business Process Management Suites dated 17 March 2014. This Research Note was written by: Teresa Jones, Roy Schulte and Michelle Cantara.  Now I have an handy quote supporting my opinion: "IBPMS addresses the increasing need for Business managers to react quickly to event that impact their business and to gain better insights into business operations so that they can take the right corrective actions.  Business change is inevitable, and leading organizations will require the ability ...

Agile Methodologies are used frequently in modern systems development. Readers of this blog, as well as many people who do not read it, know that the rate of Business changes was accelerated and Information Technology systems should be flexible in order to adapt  quickly  to the Business changes. Agile Methodologies focus on high priority requirements. If you would use classic Waterfall methodologies, probably the requirements will change before you complete the Analysis. According to an old Aberdeen Group's survey, published a decade ago, the time for implementing BPM is more important than the implementation's costs. The results of the Aberdeen Group's survey implies that  Agility was required in implementing BPM. Those days, it is required more than it was required ten years ago. Forrester's analysts  Clay Richardson and John R. Rymer wrote in 2013: "The Mantra for BPM has always been "start small, think big, move fast!" However, most teams ...

Less than a year ago I wrote a post titled: BPMS Next Generation:  IBPMS . The post is about Gartner 's new Magic Quadrant of IBPMS, which is very different from previous Gartner's BPMS Magic Quadrants. Only three Leaders left in the IBPMS Magic Quadrant ( IBM , PegaSystems and Appian ) due to a new Use Case: Intelligent Business Process Operation (IBPO).  In the MyTake section of the post I wrote: "Expect changes in Immature markets like IBPMS". Vendors which are no longer Leaders will try to improve their position in this emerging market.  Tibco acquired StreamBase Systems .  StreamBase Systems is  a Complex Event Processing and Real Time Analytics company. This post is about Software AG a former BPMS Leader. a brief history of Software AG BPM History 2006 - The company released a SOA and BPM suite. The suite was developed together with Fujitsu .  As far as BPM is concerned, Software AG used, Fujitsu Interstage branded as Software Ag pro...

For decades we are talking about closing the gap between business and IT , but the gap is still as wide as it was. In the beginning of the ERP era, we focused on aligning Business Processes and Core Systems, but in most enterprises we failed. SOA was the next alignment promise: defining the SOA Services in Business boundaries instead of Technical boundaries, should narrow the gap. However, despite of SOA Business Value ( Agility and Reuse )  in most enterprises,  the large Business-IT Gap remained as large as it was.  The IT Community aimed at the next alignment attempt: SOA is technical and BPM is its Business related complement.  Will the current BPM based alignment attempt succeed? I do not know, but Nick Heath's article  titled: Stop doing what the vendors tell you, CIOs told , published in  Tech Republic , suggests that the root of the problem is not Technological .   Stop Doing What the vendors Tell You Nick Heath's article is based ...

In a  previous post I discussed Business Process Management (BPM) evolution as reflected by an Ovum report.  Recently I read new Gartner BPM Magic Quadrant . The Magic Quadrant is titled IBPMS Magic Quadrant. If you compare it to previous Gartner BPMS Magic Quadrants (you should not compare them), you will find a totally different picture.  Only three Leaders in the IBPMS Magic Quadrant, namely: IBM , PegaSystems and Appian . No Challengers and a lot of Visionaries I know ( Oracle , Software AG , Tibco , Vitria ) and two Visionaries I never heard of ( Bosch Software Innovations , Whitestein ).  Previous BPMS Magic Quadrant includes many Leaders, many Challengers as well as many Visionaries. The pattern of few Leaders, No Challengers and many Visionaries is typical to immature markets. Gartner explains it as a new generation of BPMS tools. What differentiate IBPMS from BPMS? IBPMS tools try to address a new Use Case : Intelligent  Business Operati...

Why SOA is implemented by more enterprises than BPM ?  SOA is an Architecture, so an enterprise may use an Architecture or not.  Many Enterprises without any architecture, begin their SOA initiative, when SOA was only Hype and buzzword. Other Enterprises followed when it matured. Some realized measurable SOA benefits.  Unfortunately, many of them executed it wrongly, and therefore their SOA benefits were limited or even non-existent.  Managing Business Processes is not an option it is a must . Therefore Enterprises managed their Processes manually or by usage of  code  embedded in Systems' Business Logic Layer. It is difficult to convince them to change their Process Management practices by implementing BPM. The company's management team may use the slogan: If it is not broken do not fix it.   The significant value of BPM is not Business Process Automation. It is Business Process Change or Improvement or Flexibility. In order to change a Bus...

Dovel Technologies is buying Zapthink . It is the first time I read about Dovel.  Unlike Dovel, Zapthink is well known to me. As a SOA expert, I read Zapthink's analysis of SOA and other Architectural topics as well as short articles named ZapFlash .  SOA is Zapthink's major field of expertise. The small company headed by Ronald Schmelzer and Jason Bloomberg provides SOA training and certification, SOA Consulting Services and SOA Research. Schmelzer and Bloomberg's work reveals deep understanding and vast knowledge of SOA. The challenges facing small Analysts and Consultants are incomparable to challenges facing a lot larger company.  Like small software vendors many of the small Consulting and/or Market Analysis companies will not survive. The  circumstances are similar to the circumstances of smaller software vendors described in my post titled:  Vendors Survival Guide: Supermarket Grocery and Kiosk   as well as in other Vendors Sur...