2009 BPM and Workflow Handbook: Spotlight on Government [Paperback]

Layna Fischer (ed) (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 25, 2009

The question, How can governments manage change organizationally and be agile operationally? is answered in this special spotlight on BPM in Government worldwide with specific emphasis on the USA government where agencies, armed forces, states and cities are facing almost insurmountable challenges.
This is a book for business people who just want to understand the how and why of process automation and integration in simple non-jargon terms. It is also for the technical person looking for current insights into where BPM standards are heading, how others are managing implementations and more.
Throughout the book international industry experts and thought leaders present significant new ideas and concepts to help you plan a successful future for your organization.

SPOTLIGHT ON BPM IN GOVERNMENT

* An Open Letter to President Obama: It s Time to Fix Broken Government

* Measuring Readiness for BPM: Insights from Corporate Entrepreneurship and Organizational Change Research

* Streamlining Research and Development Case Files at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)

* How Converging Methodologies and Technologies Effect Adoption and Success of BPM

* Optimizing the Institution for Corporate Development in Uruguay

* Delivering Case Management with BPM in the Public Sector: Combining Knowledge with Process

* BPM in eGovernment: a Genuine Virtual Counter

* Transforming Health Care through Enterprise Architecture and BPM

* Delivering Strategy through Process: SAPO Case Study

* Managing Change with Re-Usable Assets for Government Agencies

* Streamlining the Congress of the Republic of Peru e-Government

* Processes Systematization of the High Court of Justice (Mexico)

SECTION 2 THE BUSINESS VALUE OF WORKFLOW AND BPM

* Application Provisioning in the Cloud

* Business Transformation Blueprint BPM as Key Enabler

* Financial Crisis Front Line: SNS Bank

* Leveraging Best Practices through a Human Process Management System

* People Relationship Management: Completing the BPM Value Proposition

SECTION 3 BPM IN STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY

* Two Strategies for Handling Models: Preserving vs. Transforming

* A Design Methodology for BPMN

* The Auto Optimizer

* Open Source Workflow Management Systems: A Concise Survey

* Extending XPDL with the Temporal Perspective

* BPM SAAS as the Foundation of a Cloud-based Post-IT Enterprise

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Future Strategies Inc. (May 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977752798
• ISBN-13: 978-0977752799
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 6.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,548,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BPM for the Government, May 31, 2010

By 

Paul Harmon, Editor, Business Process Trends (San Francisco, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: 2009 BPM and Workflow Handbook: Spotlight on Government (Paperback)

Before there were BPM there was the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) - a group of software vendors and user companies that exist to promote best practices in workflow analysis, design and implementation. Each year for the past many years, the WfMC has issued a handbook capturing the state-of-the-art in workflow practices. For the past few years they have expanded their focus to include articles on BPM (or, more often BPM Software). The most recent handbook, released in 2009, features a special section on BPM and workflow practices in government.

If readers are not involved in government work, they may not realize how active this area has become. The governments of Australia, Canada and Denmark have developed process frameworks that states or provinces can share to standardize fiscal, police and welfare practices. The Swedish military developed a comprehensive process architecture to guide them in transitioning from a more conventional military organization to one better adopted to UN peacekeeping missions. A US Air Force officer leads a special Supply Chain Council SIG on the use of SCOR in government, and the government of the UK lead in the development of the popular ITIL standard. In other words, some of the most advanced work in BPM development today is being done by government BPM practitioners.

About half of the 2009 Handbook is made up of articles on Government issues and the other half is focused on more traditional BPM/workflow topics. As one expects from a collection of articles like this, some are very interesting and others not so interesting. One thing is certain, the days when the Workflow Handbook only focused on software implementations or on standards used in software work is long past. They are serious about the BPM in the title and have a number of good articles on process work that are quite independent of workflow concerns.

For example, Daniel T. Hold from the Air Force Institute of Technology is concerned with understanding when an organization is ready for change. He has done an impressive review of the organizational change literature to provide readers with a checklist of things one might want to consider in assessing whether a group is ready for change. In the same spirit Marietjie Lancaster, Carien Venter and Michelle Booyset describe how they approached rolling out a new process in the South African Post Office, overcoming the natural human resistance to change with careful planning.

Michael White, of Singularity, discussed how most government organizations organize their processes to deal with cases (e.g. a social security pensioner applying for benefits, a hospital organizing to treat a patient) and how cases require special techniques to capture and model the flexibility they typically exhibit. White focuses especially on the problems of automating the management of cases.

Juan Chacon, Vanina Marcote of PECTRA Technology and Luis Ramirez of ACERTI discuss how they worked with the High Court of Justice in Mexico to develop a process framework that would support the government's e-government commitment. Other articles reported eGovernment initiatives in Belgium and in Chile.

Among the non-government articles, there were articles like the one by Vinaykumar S. Mummigatti of IBM and Tom Bobrowski of Capgemini that describes the key role that BPM plays in business transformation and an article by Eric D. Schabell and Stijn Hoppenbrouwers of SNS Bank and Radboud University Nijmegen Netherlands on how SNS Bank has transformed their bank by introducing open, online processes to streamline their customers interaction with the bank.

I particularly enjoyed an article by Roy Altman of Peopleserv that discussed the way process automation support people, who provide the real value in most business processes. This article provides some interesting insights into exactly how one can think about the value people add.

Workflow technology is hardly an independent technology anymore. It has been largely absorbed into the broader BPM movement, and this is reflected in this handbook. Broadly the Handbooks have traced the history of concerns that have driven the workflow vendors. Today, a quick glance at this Handbook, suggests that those involved in the WfMC, just like those involved in other BPM and BPMS efforts are interested in a wide range of concerns, from strategic transformation and business process architectures to process redesign and job design. There are still the papers on workflow standards that the vendors are working on, but they aren't nearly as important as they used to be. This community has shifted from a focus on how to automate processes to how to help organizations improve their performance. And this handbook, in particular, has a lot of how BPM practitioners are working to help public organizations define and improve their business processes.

Altogether it's an interesting set of articles with much good advice and several nice case studies of successful implementations. There is little that is revolutionary here, but there is much that can help a practitioner who faced with a major process change project. Moreover, this particular handbook will be of special interest to anyone involved in attempting to apply BPM to a government agency and I especially recommend it to government BPM people.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Business Process Management, April 20, 2010

By 

Michael Harrison (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 2009 BPM and Workflow Handbook: Spotlight on Government (Paperback)

For anyone who Is looking for a great book with plenty of information about business process management and workflow management this one is for you. Though it specifically focuses on government and how BPM can be successfully implemented in such a rigid structure. The book is broken down into three easy to read sections that have valuable information that is pertinent to business people today.

I am not a business person, but I am interested in the government and ways to help bring about change that our country needs. I found this book interesting to read and written in a way that even a non business person could understand. I liked the section on technology because it explains the changes that are coming and how technology will play a key role in these changes. This book is definitely not for everyone, but for those interested in Business Process Management this book will make a great addition to your home library.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, April 21, 2010

By 

Tina "Tina" (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: 2009 BPM and Workflow Handbook: Spotlight on Government (Paperback)

2009 BMP and Workflow: Spotlight on Government actually took the saying "put your money where you mouth is" and turned it on its ear. In this highly informative book - the age old question of "how can the government "be" better and "work" better is examined, through a series of papers and comments from various sources. In short, this book actually puts to paper what thoughts and theories on how the government can be more functional, more productive and BETTER.

Some of the theories are actually incredibly interesting and made me pause and really reflect. Of course, I have my own view of how things should work or not work and, from the outstide, looking in - things are always so easy. However, after reading this book, I realized that things aren't quite as black and white as I might like to think - so, this book was a very handy tool to make me take a step back and reflect a bit more.

Fortunately, this book is written in a way that both techie and non techie people can easily absorb and understand. I liked that the author did not get carried away with his own self importance by pontificating - this is more of a "theory" based book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.