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Business
Process Management
Articles
BPM Vs ISO
Stephen G.Smith,
Rummler-Brache Group, BPMInstitute.Org Website and Newsletter, March 29,
2007.
ISO tends to concentrate on documentation as the primary
evidence of process maturity. There are risks involved in this
approach, as an organization could easily "fool" the ISO criteria by
concentrating on physical, static evidence (the documentation)
rather than dynamic evidence, such as metrics history. In
addition, there are often less tangible aspects such as company
values, common practices, and other cultural elements - all of which
are very fluid - that cannot be effectively represented in static
documentation. By contrast, BPM effectively accounts for the
more dynamic elements in an organization by its very nature of
focusing on active flow versus static documents.
The Gap between Process and the End
Users : A Case Study For Process
Roadmaps
Christine Dicken, Julius Spain, APS,
BPTrends Newsletter and Website, April,
2007.
Christine Dicken and Julius Spain examine the problems their
organization encountered in implementing process initiatives, and
describe the solution they developed to overcome the gap between the
development of the processes, and implementation of the processes by
end users.
Insights on Establishing an Operational Excellence
Program
iSixSigma Europe Newsletter
and Website, March 7, 2007.
In a
conversation with iSixSigma, Gerald (Jerry) P. Belle, the executive
chairman of Merial, and Dr. Silke Birlenbach, vice president of
Operational Excellence for Merial, offer insights on their
Operational Excellence program. They answer questions such as, When
is the right time to launch a company-wide initiative such as
Operational Excellence?, and What did you expect would change
through Operational Excellence?
Six Sigma Basics: DMAIC Like Normal Problem
Solving
Chew Jian Chieh, Valeocon Consulting,
iSixSigma Europe
Website and Newsletter, March 21,
2007.
Six
Sigma problem solving is really not so different from day-to-day
problem solving, except in Six Sigma, nobody knows what is really
causing the problem at the beginning of the project. Six Sigma DMAIC
methodology is really just a series of common sense questions that
one asks in order to solve any problem and eventually sustain the
gains that come from solving the problem.
Measuring and Improving Service
Processes with Six
Sigma
Nari Kannan, Ajira Technologies,
Inc., iSixSigma Financial Services Newsletter, March 21, 2007.
Service processes play integral
roles in almost every company - loan processing in the case of
banks, mechanical services in an automobile dealership, recruitment
or new employee orientation in a human resources department,
accounts payable in an accounting department. Here are four ways to
help ensure sensible measurements and improvement.
Creating a High Performance
Culture with Hoshin Kanri
Frank
Deno, New York ISO, iSixSigma Financial Services Website and
Newsletter, March 7, 2007.
Often
organizations plan effectively for performance gains, but fail to
act on their plan to achieve their goals, leading to poor
performance. Hoshin Kanri is a method that addresses the need to act
on and achieve planned goals. Implementing Hoshin allows an
organization to build a high performance culture and measure the
progress of culture change toward a high performance. Following this
process on a set schedule for each of the fundamental plans and
annual plans throughout the organization ensures achievement of the
business mission and progress towards the business
vision.
Six Sigma Strategy: Understanding the Customer
Process
Bryan Carey,
John Munce, iSixSigma Financial Services
Newsletter, March 7,
2007.
Here are three ways that leaders of an organization can
define and document their customer strategy regardless of whether
they choose to utilize Lean and Six Sigma to execute the strategy:
Business Architecture, Hoshin Planning, and Information, Process and
Infrastructure Diagramming.
Business
Process Outsourcing
Articles
Looking Beyond Cost
Savings in Outsourcing
Nari Kannan, Ajira
Technologies, Inc., Sourcingmag.com Newsletter and Website, March
21, 2007.
Many companies will share with you their own anecdotes
about how, when they added up the costs of travel, coordination,
delays and changes, the promised cost savings in outsourcing were
always much smaller than originally expected. Looking beyond cost
savings in outsourcing is strategically beneficial for both buyers
and sellers of outsourcing services.
Midsize Firms Get More Value from
Outsourcing
Allan E. Alter,
CIO Insight
Newsletter and Website,
March 7, 2007.
Our research reveals that smaller companies are
more satisfied with their outsourcing deals than larger
firms.
Newspaper Publishing:
Gaining Offshore Traction
ValueNotes Database
Newsletter and Website, March 23,
2007.
In 2004, Reuters decided to set up a
center in Bangalore with a small team focused on data and news
gathering. Today the 'fledgling team' has grown to a sizeable 1,000+
and has evolved to reporting financial news, writing complex stories
as well as handling the entire IT database operations.
Product Development Outsourcing Helps This Company
Stay Competitive
Lana Gates, SourcingMag.com Newsletter and Website,
March 19, 2007.
How does a 100-percent, self-funded,
interactive educational software company stay afloat and compete
with much larger organizations to deploy electronic media and online
educational solutions? The answer is through outsourcing. Xplana
Learning develops digital educational solutions for big-name
publishing clients, including McGraw-Hill, Thomson, Houghton-Mifflin
and Cambridge University Press. As a result, the company can't
afford much downtime. Nor can it afford to compromise its
intellectual property (IP).
Outsourcing to Win: 4 Steps to An Effective
Strategy
Paul McDougall,
Information Week Newsletter and Website, March 9,
2007.
Here's what experts say CIOs and managers need to know to
effectively manage a team of outsourcers and get the biggest bang
for their IT dollars.
Agile Outsourcing: Managing Technology Metrics for
Outsourced Software Development
Nari Kannan, Ajira Technologies, Inc.,
Sourcingmag.com Newsletter and Website, April 2,
2007.
If you're managing an IT project, you know that you need to
set the important metrics you'll monitor to gauge whether the work
is on track. Yet, what metrics should those be? In the case of
software development, you may be surprised to learn that metrics
might include such items as network latency, operating system
currency, and the availability of support systems, such as defect
management programs and collaboration portals. Why are these
important?
Notable
News
Latin America: Destination Next for
India
ValueNotes Database Newsletter and Website, March 16,
2007.
In the recent few years there have
been several instances of Indian service providers setting up Latin
American shops.
In A Reversal, India Is Outsourcing To
IBM
Paul McDougall, Information Week Newsletter
and Website, March 30, 2007.
The
$29 million deal's value could increase if India's largest real
estate company maintains current growth rates.
Lean Delivers Faster Turnaround Time in Hospital
Lab
Jennifer Blaha, GE Healthcare, iSixSigma Healthcare
Newsletter and Website, March 28,
2007.
A hospital employed Lean Six Sigma methodologies in its
specimen collection process to decrease patient wait time, decrease
the distance staff needed to travel to complete tasks, increase
patient touch time and improve lab turnaround time. "The lab staff
saw great wins in terms of reduction in travel distance, time saved
and increased patient touch time. The real excitement, however, came
when the staff started to see a reduction in its overall turnaround
time. Chemistry cycle time from draw to report ready was reduced by
35 minutes.
Streamlining Coast Guard's Accounts Payable
Process
Mike Donnelly, The George Group,
iSixSigma Finance Newsletter and
Website, March 21, 2007.
Coast Guard Finance Center fix for over-stressed accounts
payable process: An experienced Lean Six Sigma consultant with a
finance background to lead a project team, break through the
complexity, and design a Lean, effective and scaleable process. By
utilizing the Lean Six Sigma methodology, the finance center now
better understands where the pain lies (the root cause) and has
already started developing improvement plans aimed at reducing the
complexity and streamlining the larger
process.
The CEO as CIO: An Interview with
the Head of India's Top Private Bank
Leo Puri, The McKinsey Quarterly, March 31, 2007. (Free
Membership Needed)
Information technology is so crucial for the
success of India’s top private bank, ICICI Bank, that the CEO says
he oversees it himself.
In The Thick of IT: Chief
Information Security Officers Address Broad Risk Management
Concerns
Anthony
O'Donnell, Insurance &
Technology, March 9, 2007.
Privacy, regulatory compliance, identity management and
access top today's insurance industry chief information security
officers' (CISOs) concerns.
A New Foundation: SOA Implementation and Bank
Transformation
Nancy Feig, Bank Systems
& Technology, March 30,
2007.
Charged with differentiating the
bank and growing its business in the face of larger-scale
competitors, Wachovia's CIB division had to map out where its
technology needed to be to match where it wanted the business to go,
relates Bishop. Under the leadership of Susan Certoma, who stepped
into the role of CIO for the CIB division in 2004, Bishop was about
to embark on a three-year total transformation of the business
enabled by SOA.
Notable
Events
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