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Requirements elicitation is a critical, yet under-appreciated, activity. A core capability of business analysts, the ability to get the customers to describe what they want, and need, is both a science and an art. Requirements elicitation
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Apparently, I ticked off Bruce Silver . In case you haven't heard of the fellow, as I had not, Bruce is a consultant who makes his living providing training on BPM tools and his advice on BPM products. At least, that's the impression I got from reading
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In a prior post, I described a process modeling antipattern which I called " Blame the Computer ." The feedback helped me to realize that there's a deeper problem that we need to consider: alignment of ownership between process and IT. Ownership of a
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Whenever you model a business process, it is inevitable that, sooner or later, you will come to an activity that is entirely automated. As time goes on, more and more of the activities slip quietly into the technology. However, I'm noticing a troubling
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In my opinion, a business function can often be best understood by describing the processes that compose it. My last post , I attempted to describe the role of an Enterprise Architect, and the ensuing discussion quickly splintered because everyone viewed
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We use process models for lots of things. One is simply to understand the processes we have and to analyze them looking for opportunities to improve. But in IT, we have another good reason: to better understand software requirements. One goal that we
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In any relationship, it is dangerous for one side to "decide" what the other one wants. Marriage advisors say things like "Don't control others or make choices for them." Yet, I'd like to share a story of technologists
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I'm going to suggest a minimal way to gather requirements, one that produces a (minimum) requirements document in an iterative and agile manner. A little background In the systems space, it is common to write up a "requirements document" that attempts
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I have always taken the advice at face value: the "to be" model matters much more than the "as is" model does. Implicit in that: spend as little time on the "as is" model as you can. Perhaps, even, do the "to
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Gentle reader: can you help me to solve a debate? Introduction Many companies have adopted the practice of capability modeling in the past few years. Often, this is done to align the portfolio of business initiatives (and often, IT projects) with corporate
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I'm working on a BPM effort right now. I've spent a bit of time talking to business users inside my company about Business Process, and how they'd like to see us become more of a process oriented company. Then I compare what they are saying with what
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I love business process. I hate "business process." I love the goals and concepts and important value that comes from drilling in and understanding the planning, management, and operational measurement of business processes. As I've said before, business
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I have a SOA view of the software development lifecycle. And, in that SOA view, BPM fits nicely. First, a comparison: Waterfall looks like this: Waterfall: Plan --> Envision --> Design --> Develop & Test --> Deploy Agile: Plan --> Sprint
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One challenge that we run into: having a software developer design the business process. Now, that's no slam on software developers. There are some very smart cookies out there writing software... but if you want to develop a business process, you need
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This is fifth in a series on the impact of the business operating model on Service Oriented Architecture. (see overview ) Artificial Constraints and the SOA Message In response to another bit of feedback: In these posts, I describe the requirements for
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