Book Description
PRAISE FOR ACHIEVING BUSINESS VALUE FROM TECHNOLOGY
"Clearly, IT investments have never before played such a critical part in business growth. The book addresses the weakness existing in most management systems involving the lack of a systematic process to realize the economic benefits of the IT investment and provides a clear A-Z methodology for business to bridge this gap. This book is clearly written for all levels and backgrounds in business management and is a must-do for those whose business involves IT, is considering IT, or would like to significantly tailor IT investments for their economic advantage."
—Professor Richard P. Wool, University of Delaware, President and CEO, Cara Plastics Inc.
"Tony Murphy addresses the difficult question of the value of IT investments head on. He translates an elegant theory into effective practice. The case studies in the book effectively reinforce his key messages."
—Dr. Dermot Moynihan, Senior Vice President, World Wide Chemical Development, GlaxoSmithKline
"This book is the answer to most CIOs' need for a well-structured, pragmatic, and easily implemented set of tools and practices designed to answer the universal problem of managing and measuring IT's contribution to the business. Tony Murphy's unique blend of practical experience, industry best practice, and excellent communication skills provides the reader with a valuable-and highly readable-guide on how best to achieve that elusive objective of reliably realizing the business benefits of IT investments."
—Michael Rice, oup Director of IT, Kerry Group plc
"At Oxfam we are one year into a three-year IT strategy based on the principles Tony Murphy lays out in this book, and there is a real, positive difference in how IT is perceived, and in its real strategic position within the organization. If you have ever wondered just how you can gain strategic alignment for your IT function, and then how to make the practical link to IT investment for the organization, Tony has provided a framework that joins them both."
—Simon Jennings, Head of Information Systems, Oxfam GB
Customer Reviews:
Clear modern thinking about Business Value.......2002-10-18
Clearly written, this book debunks some myths and sets a modern path towards pursuit of business value. We need plain talking books that bridge the business/IT divide and tell it the way it is.
Great reading and immediately useful.
Well written, well organized, very practical.......2002-10-08
I was leary when I saw the words "practical guide" in the title as I find that the phrase is often far from the truth. I guess I was in a gambling mood because I took a shot and found that this is a rare case where the advice here is actually implementable. The book includes detailed case studies, very specific advice on appropriate measures or "pillars" as the author calls them of IT project value, and lists of sample questions and metrics for each pillar.
All in all this is a very useful book for justifying IT projects particularly in today's environment when your pal the CFO is squeezing every penny trying to get blood out.
Book Description
This book heralds a breakthrough that redefines competitive advantage for the next fifty years. Don't bridge the business-IT divide: Obliterate it! The book is the first authoritative analysis of how third-wave business process management (BPM) changes everything in business and what it portends. While the vision of process management is not new, existing theories and systems have not been able to cope with the reality of business processes --until now. This book describes a radical, simplifying shift in process thinking and technology that utterly transforms today's information systems and reduces the lag between management intent and execution.
A process-managed enterprise makes agile course corrections, embeds Six Sigma quality and reduces cumulative costs across the value chain. It pursues strategic initiatives with confidence, including mergers, consolidation, alliances, acquisitions, outsourcing and global expansion. Process management is the only way to achieve these objectives with transparency, management control and accountability. The process-managed enterprise grasps control of business processes and communicates with a universal process language that enables partners to execute on shared vision --to understand each other's operations in detail, jointly design processes and manage the entire lifecycle of their business improvement initiatives.
Process management is not another form of automation, a new killer-app or a fashionable new management theory. With the third-wave BPM breakthrough and its solid mathematical underpinnings, business processes can now be unhindered by the constraints of existing IT systems. Short on stories and long on insight and practical information, this book will help your business become the company of the future, the real-time enterprise, the fully digitized corporation --the process-managed enterprise. The book also offers continually updated information and a dialog with the authors at its Web site.
Customer Reviews:
This book shows the way.......2006-07-26
This book clearly outlines how process management has matured well beyond the reengineering phase and is blending with automation and quality management.
This book showed the way how Six Sigma is part of BPM and how BPM and SOA merge. It clearly relates technology and business opportunities. I be interested in an update, especially in relation to Peter Fingar's GREAT new book: Extreme Competition.
The Third Wave and Extreme Competition is a must read for every manager and MBA student.
THIS BOOK DOES NOT GET FULL STAR RATING AS IT LACKS CLEAR STEPS ON HOW TO MAKE THIS ACTUALLY HAPPEN
Business Process Management - The Third Wave.......2006-04-05
This book can be summed up quote from page 70 of the text: "long on talk and short on results." I was very disappointed with the investment of any money in this hyped book. The authors ramble on and on and give little but their long winded examples of what they think the third wave is. My advice is to read the introduction and don't waste your time with the rest of the book.
Get it, read it, buy it if ..........2005-07-27
you want to improve business processes.
History of business process management and beyond.......2005-05-19
I run a business in Maine, USA, and while I have no knowledge of BPM or workflow in a business context, this book helped me a great deal. I don't know if BPM is an important as the authors state, but it did present the past, present and future of a simple idea, improving business by improving business processes. I can well imagine new BPM and workflow systems helping enormously. But what I liked most of all was the explanations of how process has been a thread throughout business, from the 1920s to today, through the quality and reengineering movements. I heard about this book on the grapevine like a lot of management books. I run an operation, and don't have time for theory, but this book put a lot of what happens in my IT department into context. I like the idea of people being in charge of the processes that run on engines maintained by IT folks.
Ahead of its time.......2005-05-19
Its well known that people in business who tout business processes can come unstuck when they encounter people who don't believe in process improvement. I am a process improvement director in a fast moving consumer goods company. Process works. But I have an awful job convincing some of my colleagues. This book tells the story, and was way ahead of its time when first published. Now the case studies are coming in (as reported by Gartner et al) and anyone doubting this book is going to eat humble pie. BPM works.
Book Description
Knowledge Networks: Innovations Through Communities of Practice draws on the experience of people who have worked with CoPs in the real world and to present their combined wisdom in a form that is accessible to a wide audience. CoPs are examined from a practical, rather than a purely academic point of view. The book also examines the benefits that CoPs can bring to an organization, provides a number of case studies, lessons learned and sets of guidelines. It also looks at virtual CoPs and to the future by asking 'what next?' This book is a resource for all people who work with CoPs - both in academia and in the real world.
Customer Reviews:
A Rich crop...Well harvested..........2004-04-06
The management of knowledge is a diverse field of study and within the field new crops of ideas are constantly emerging. One of the most resource-rich crops is that of community of practice. Sometimes generic, often hybrid and capable of being genetically-modified they have vast potential in supporting knowledge ecologies.
The agricultural metaphor lends itself well to the nurturing of knowledge. Of course, this is not the first time it has been used nor will it be the last. My own particular interest in the metaphor is how it not only lends itself to communities of practice but also to the process of learning.
For the last three years, I have been involved in teaching a module entitled "Knowledge Management" to students Mastering in Information and Library Management at a University in the North East of England. During those three years, communities of practice have emerged as a significant tool in understanding the creation, capture and transfer of knowledge within and between organizations.
The method of teaching involves lectures (theory-based) and seminars (case study-based) with the use of specific tasks to link the two areas.
This collection of papers is, perhaps, the single most useful text to emerge for teaching the concept of communities of practice, how they relate to managing knowledge within organizations and how they are cultivated and developed. It is abundant in well-researched and relevant commentary, which avoids the jargon of other works. The case studies are particularly useful to information management students trying to understand the relationship between information and knowledge management.
Congratulations to the editors for their conceptualization of the structure and identification of appropriate areas of content and to the individual authors for the quality of their contributions.
Book Description
Building on his pioneering work on the management of technology and innovation in his first book, Managing the Flow of Technology, Thomas J. Allen of MIT has joined with award-winning German architect Gunter Henn of HENN Architekten to produce a book that explores the combined use of two management tools to make the innovation process most effective: organizational structure and physical space. They present research demonstrating how organizational structure and physical space each affect communication among peoplein this case, engineers, scientists, and others in technical organizationsand they illustrate how organizations can transform both to increase the transfer of technical knowledge and maximize the communication for inspiration that is central to the innovation process. Allen and Henn illustrate their points with discussions of well-known buildings around the world, including Audis corporate headquarters, Steelcases corporate design center, and the Corning Glass Becker building, as well as several of Gunter Henns own projects, including the Skoda automotive factory in the Czech Republic and the Faculty for Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich. Allen and Henn then demonstrate the principles developed in their work by discussing in detail one example in which organizational structure and physical space were combined successfully to promote innovation with impressive results: HENN Architektens Project House for the BMW Group Research and Innovation Centre in Munich, cited by Business Week (April 24, 2006) in naming BMW one of the worlds most innovative companies.
Professor Thomas Allen is the originator of the Allen curve. In the late 1970s, Tom Allen undertook a project to determine how the distance between engineers offices coincided with the level of regular technical communication between them. The results of that research, now known as the Allen Curve, revealed a distinct correlation between distance and frequency of communication (i.e. the more distance there is between people 50 meters or more to be exact the less they will communicate). This principle has been incorporated into forward-thinking commercial design ever since, in, for example, The Decker Engineering Building in New York, the Steelcase Corporate Development Center in Michigan, and BMWs Research Center in Germany.
*Professor Allen of MIT is known worldwide for "the Allen curve" which is taught and cited in all management literature about innovation
*Gunter Henn is a renowned architect in Germany known for his innovative industrial building designs such as BMW projecthaus and the Skoda factory
*Shows in clear terms--based on actual research and implementation--how managers can organize the work, workers, and their physical space to maximize the potential for innovation
Book Description
Organizations are struggling for greater return on their multibillion-dollar technology and project-related investments. Individual projects may be useful, but when examined collectively, they often work at cross-purposes, duplicate each other's efforts, or aim for obsolescing business objectives. And all are competing for scarce resources. In today's earnings-driven business environment, companies must look to their portfolios to better deliver on objectives and propel the organization forward.
Based on their experience with a variety of companies, authors Cathleen Benko and distinguished professor F. Warren McFarlan have developed an alignment approach that better connects an organization's project portfolio to its corporate objectives in a manner responsive to today's unpredictable environment.
Connecting the Dots provides a scalable framework and practical tools for better aligning a company's: (1) project portfolio with its objectives; (2) individual projects with each other; and (3) portfolio and objectives with the volatile environment. Better-aligned companies enhance business/technology performance by increasing shareholder value and confidence and improving the portfolio's return on investment. This in-the-trenches guidebook helps companies capture this latent value while building a more adaptive organization.
AUTHORBIO: Cathleen Benko is Braxton's Global e-Business Leader. F. Warren McFarlan is the Senior Associate Dean and Albert H. Gordon Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
Customer Reviews:
Good book on balancing the project portfolio thru process.......2004-03-11
Many organizations approve any project that sounds like "a good idea". This "soda straw" perspective is a sure way to over-task people, make project cost and delivery unpredictable, and ensure a poor reputation for the organization executing projects. While business leaders do not set out to cripple and distract their organizations, the lack of an institutionalized process frequently yields poor results. While this book addresses the narrow space of project alignment with organizational objectives, the authors propose a framework and tools that organizations with the commitment to follow it through can use to get optimum results from their project portfolio. Specifically, the approach offered by the authors helps organizations align their project portfolio with corporate objectives, align individual projects with one another, and enable organizational flexibility.
The process provides a certain rigor, but those seeking to implement this process in their organization should consider 1) first implementing a functional basic project portfolio management process, 2) ensuring that the process proposed in this book is a good match to their organizational culture, and 3) that in implementing this process they do not over-engineer their project portfolio management process.
Those proposing this process for adoption, or who are conducting a project portfolio alignment workshop, may wish to visit the book Website (HBSP), which has Microsoft PowerPoint slide presentations and graphics available for download. This Website is a useful adjunct to the book.
This is a useful book for project portfolio managers in organizations who want more rigor in their project portfolio management process.
Utility of the Information
The value of the book, in my view, lies in the following attributes:
* The authors present complex ideas in an easy-going, not scholarly style, making the book easy to read. They use graphics to communicate concepts like frameworks and tools, and they employ a case-study approach to illustrate application.
* The framework consisting short- and long-term objectives along with organizational trait objectives provides for a balanced perspective.
* The alignment tools provide an approach to view projects in a portfolio view. This allows the portfolio management team to align projects and the portfolio with organizational direction, improve project efficiency, manage risks, and achieve flexibility.
* The framework and tools consciously align the project portfolio with organizational goals, bringing focus to the portfolio.
* Workshop attendees can use the tools to gain fresh a perspective of projects instead of a traditional, organizational alignment point of view where, say, projects are always associated with the division who sponsors the projects.
* Incorporates a change management perspective by asking how much change an organization can digest in a given time period.
* Supports and promotes program management by forcing analysis of the interdependencies of projects and project deliverables.
* Supports and promotes spiral (iterative development) through the "project chunking" perspective.
* Aids the risk management process by balancing project benefits versus risks in the project proposal and review process.
* Portfolio managers or teams can apply the framework and tools in a step-by-step fashion, reducing anxiety about "how to eat the elephant". This stepwise approach supports workshop breakout sessions.
Application of the Framework and Tools
Several questions arise when one considers if one can apply an authors approach to solving business problems; is the approach practicable.
Position of the Framework in the Larger Project Portfolio Management Context
If the project portfolio management process includes 1) understanding supply and demand (people, money and projects), alignment of decision boards with authority, project assessment, and continuous process improvement (IPS Associates and Stanford APM), this framework fits toward the end of that process spectrum. This book does not describe the overall project portfolio management process, or how to implement project portfolio management in an organization. This book really answers the question "Now that I have a project portfolio management process in place, how do I mature my portfolio alignment and balance process?"
Feasibility, Suitability and Acceptability
For organizations which have implemented project portfolio management and wish for more rigor in the project-business alignment sub-process, this book is a credible offering. One would expect that if a portfolio management team applied all the tools in this book to their portfolio that the result would be 1) a considerable time investment and 2) a better aligned portfolio. The portfolio management team must therefore be willing to take the time to 1) learn several tools and 2) apply the tools in a step-wise and iterative fashion over time.
The framework, tools and examples emphasize application in a business (for profit) context. Practitioners in governmental or other not for profit organizations will need to critically review, tailor and possibly adapt the framework and tools to their purposes.
Organizations with a small number of projects and who have portfolio management team members who are more inclined to make decisions quickly, who are not possessed with an engineering or analytical mindset may think that they do not need or have the patience for such a process. Team members may respond to this approach saying "I'll just use my business experience and common sense to achieve balance in my portfolio". While this statement may or may not be true, I would expect this response in some cultures. One approach to this may be for the portfolio management support office to compile the data, apply the tools, and make a staff recommendation to the portfolio management team for decision.
While the authors bring both academic (McFarlan is a professor) and business experience (Benko is a consultant) to this book, they cite no studies to support the effectiveness of their approach. Therefore, organizations which require empirical evidence of process effectiveness before accepting or implementing a new business process may be resistant to implementing this process.
References, Footnoting and Bibliography
This book is well referenced, footnoted and indexed. This increases the utility of the book for one who has first read and understood the book.
One can often tell when an academic was on the team of authors; the footnoting is excellent, and the Notes section (Benko and McFarlan 221-30) is a useful resource for exploring other sources of information for further research. Specifically, the notes section is ample at nine pages, the lexicon is helpful with three pages of content, and the index is well populated with nine pages of indexed words.
A workable and appealing alignment framework.......2003-11-27
Consultant Cathleen Benko and business professor McFarlan come into alignment in this tremendously practical book. Today's companies need to bring their misaligned, overlapping, and inconsistent projects into alignment through "frontier living". This means delivering results in the present while adapting for the future's business context by using four "traits" to configure your project portfolio for confusing, volatile, and unpredictable conditions.
The title of the book refers to the need to "connect the dots" between an organization's objectives and its project investments to create and balance present and future value. The book's plethora of tools combined with the easygoing writing style makes it engaging and painless to absorb. Benko and McFarlan can be forgiven for overstating the role of project alignment - that is, after all, the standard book author's tendency. It is true, however, that companies project initiatives total up into the trillions of dollars and it requires no stretch to accept the claim that those initiatives have grown faster than companies' ability to manage them. Benko and McFarlan focus on the project portfolio as the most promising key to unlocking value, arguing that the portfolio is a company's future currency. We find their underlying principle that "companies are better served by adapting themselves for the future rather than by trying to predict its destination" to be a sound one.
Alignment, in this book, specifically means aligning three drivers of business performance: a company's project portfolio with its objectives; the projects in the portfolio to each other; and the portfolio and company's objectives with the ever-changing realities of the business context. To prosper on the "information frontier", certain shifts in mind-set - "traits" - are needed. Along with operational short-term and strategic long-term objectives, these constitute the organization's *intentions*. Four traits are used throughout the book as each of the various tools are explained and applied: Eco-Driven (effective collaborations), Outside-In (looking at yourself the way others look at you), Fighting Trim (agility, coordination, and options orientation to deal with uncertainty and respond to change), and House in Order (provisioning the other traits to enable cross-enterprise collaboration).
The seven alignment tools in this book fall three groups. The Trait Meter assesses, plans, and measures trait development according to the four traits. Once this first step is completed (which includes creating an Intentions Framework), the second group of diagnostic tools comes into play: The Intentions, Sides, and Right Brain tools. These measure the nature and size of the alignment opportunity, identify organizational bias and sort projects into business activities, and identify change capacity issues. The third group of tools - Common Threads, Project Chunking, and What-If Planning - focus on building flexibility into the portfolio.
Working through the book for real will, of course, be far more challenging than merely reading it. But the authors have done a good job of clarifying important issues of alignment and have provided a workable and appealing framework and toolset for tackling those issues.
(3 stars from me is good. 4-star ratings are given too easily.)
Strong, simple decision making for your services portfolio.......2003-10-01
The strength of this book is it's simplicity and graphical representation of decision frameworks. For most companies this is a strong tool for internal development planning and compliment to Six Sigma initiatives. For consultants, this can be used to plan your services portfolio. Well written and an enjoyable read.
Quite an eye opener.......2003-09-09
I used this book for our annual management off-site and pulled the alignment exercise from the first chapter listing our top twenty projects from last year. Using the book to instigate a look back at these investments was very valuable. We always knew there was a lot of opportunity, but just not how to isolate it. The book offers some simple yet innovative tools to improve this gap, and the group enjoyed splitting up and experimenting with them.
Good idea - read it carefully.......2003-08-28
Book focuses on evaluating projects as portfolios. Focus is on alignment of projects with concern's goals (short-term, long-term, and in "traits" to handle globalization-world's uncertainties), with each other, and against the "world context." Book does state to check your guns at the door, and your slide rule, too. Approach is not quantitative as presented, and requires good faith relooks at projects. Individual tools are described to bring out misalignments, and list projects on a sheet of paper with the results of the tool analysis in a table form. Traits suggested are of four types, eco-driven for forming alliances and focusing on your own concern's strengths, outside-in for viewing yourself as stakeholders view you and adjusting your priorities accordingly, fighting-trim for being responsive and adaptable, and house-in-order for breaking down silo-thinking. Tools are in three groupings. One for traits. A group of three for alignments. And another group of three for reforming projects by looking for common threads, breaking big projects into chunks, and doing contingency planning. I don't believe I have the capability to assess the book further without trying it out, ideally in a group setting, against projects that people feel is important to them. I have, however, already used the book to describe my individual projects to senior management to place them in context and to gain leverage for the resources that I think my projects need.
Book Description
This hardcover edition is available only in a premium, full-cloth binding. It will not ship with a dust jacket.
Today's business environment demands significant changes in the way we do business. Simply formulating strategy is no longer sufficient; we must also design the processes to implement it effectively. The key to change is process innovation, a revolutionary new approach that fuses information technology and human resource management to improve business performance. The cornerstone to process innovation's dramatic results is information technology--a largely untapped resource, but a crucial enabler of process innovation. In turn, only a challenge like process innovation affords maximum use of information technology's potential. Davenport provides numerous examples of firms that have succeeded or failed in combining business change and technology initiatives. He also highlights the roles of new organizational structures and human resource programs in developing process innovation. Process innovation is quickly becoming the byword for industries ready to pull their companies out of modest growth patterns and compete effectively in the world marketplace.
Customer Reviews:
A great book on Process Improvement.......2005-10-08
Thank You to Tom Davenport.
This is a wise author who wrote a great book in the early 90's. It was eclipsed a bit by Hammer and Champy's "reengineering the corporation." It has never been given the press it rightfully deserves. I read this book in 1997 and have found it to be useful over and over again. This is a book of important business insights regarding process improvement through technology. Keep in mind that the book was written prior to the internet becoming mainstream. This author saw the future and wrote about it before it happened on a wide scale.
Any business person can draw from the wealth of knowledge in this book.
The book is a must read for business analysts, managers, and project leaders in the Information Technology field.
This book, Hammer and Champy's book, Books by H James Harrington, and some of the newer Six Sigma books can form a great curriculum for those professionals undertaking process improvement initiatives in their companies.
Change is constant. When will process improvements cease to be needed? This book looks at the dynamics of process innovation/change and how it pervades organizations.
In economic downtimes, innovation can spur growth. Leaders in companies can improve their competitive advantage through process innovations and benefit from the efficiencies and savings gained through process improvements.
A roadmap for process innovation and improvement.......2000-06-14
Davenport presents a practical roadmap for process improvement and process innovation which I have found very useful as a practitioner. Although not prescriptive, the text provides practitioners with useful very insights which can form the basis of an organisation's business process innovation/improvement methodology.
Must read.......2000-03-29
This is a well-written book on the subject of process or business reengineering. It is written in a non-technical language, wastes few words, and covers the entire spectrum of topics that are essential to a successful reengineering effort. The discussions place a significant emphasis on the role that information or computer technology play today in the reengineering effort, particularly how this technology can facilitate the overall effort. I found the book largely sticking to the overall thread however at times it did become a wee bit academic to flip through the sections. All in all, a very good read.
Book Description
In today's high-tech business world, few issues are more important than how companies can gain competitive advantage from using new technology, especially information technology (IT). In 'In Search of Business Value', Microsoft vice president Robert McDowell and best-selling business author William L. Simon address that problem head-on, describing the steps every organization must take to "get the best bang from each buck spent" on IT infrastructure.
Drawing on their own personal experience and that of over twenty-five corporate and IT leaders from the worlds of business and government, 'In Search of Business Value' covers in detail such issues as bringing organizational leaders on board in promoting the use of IT, enlisting staff support, using IT to lower costs and improve productivity, integrating the IT and business sides of an organization, and using IT to support best business practices.
IT these days is an indispensable tool in defining and achieving corporate goals. 'In Search of Business Value' is an indispensable tool for corporate leaders and managers looking to make IT work successfully for their organizations.
Customer Reviews:
Spread the enlightenment!.......2006-06-20
Most business-self-help-type books put me to sleep pretty fast. I appreciate the direction, examples, and insight given by this book. It points out many issues I have seen at past employers and gave me a lot to think about as far as 'the right ting to do' as far as technology implementations go.
From the trenches, all I usually saw was 'how do I sell this to my boss to get funding'. By changing my perspective a little, I am able to see a much bigger picture.
The problem is not too hard, it just needs to be approached with the proper respect and consideration by all parties involved. Accountability, governance, common sense, leadership, communications and honesty -- it all takes work, but it is the only way to achieve excellence.
A no-nonsense guide to steering clear of trouble .......2005-06-13
A key Microsoft vice president and a skilled author of the business world (among other venues) combine their talents to present In Search of Business Value, a management self-help book for both corporate and IT leaders that offers real-life examples showing how best to extract the maximum business value from technology. Framing the achievement of business value as a leadership issue, not a technology issue, chapters address how to make a business case for types of technology, the role governance can play in order to improve the useage of IT, how to cope with controversy and miscellaneous problems, and much more. A no-nonsense guide to steering clear of trouble and gaining optimum benefit, written especially for managers and lay people who themselves may be only minimally familiar with the latest technological innovations.
Average customer rating:
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How to Set Up and Manage a Corporate Learning Centre
Samuel A. Malone
Manufacturer: Gower Publishing Company
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Information for Innovation: Managing Change from an Information Perspective
Stuart Macdonald
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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ASIN: 0198288255 |
Book Description
Information is not taken seriously. Much is said about the information age, the information economy, the information society, and particularly about information technology, but little about information itself. If these are important, then so is information. But information is not as other goods: it has some peculiar characteristics. It cannot be displayed for sale without giving it away in the process. Sold, it goes to the buyer but still remains with the seller. Buying entails expressing demand in ignorance for buyers who do not know just what it is that they do not know. Such characteristics have long been recognised by economists, but it is not generally economists who have most to say about the importance of information. This privilege is exercised by senior managers, who speak passionately about knowledge-based, learning organizations; by politicians and public servants, anxious to compensate with policy and programme for the information failure of organization and market; and by specialists in telecommunications and information technology, bent on adding value to what they treat as just a commodity. All are particularly enthusiastic about the innovation which springs from information. Information usually requires new information. Finding, acquiring, and mixing this new information with that already in use presents problems, not least because complex information transactions are required rather than simple information transfer. Solutions can be devised, but only by accommodating the characteristics of information. This book contrasts the way innovation is normally regarded in a variety of areas from eighteenth-century agriculture to high technology, from technology transfer to industrial espionage, from corporate strategy to patents and independent inventors with how it appears from what is termed an 'information perspective', that is one that puts information first. The results are intriguing, suggesting that radically different approaches to innovation (and organization) should be considered.
Book Description
Business process innovation is on the minds of executives these days, and for good reason. In the 1990s, companies also had a focus on business processes. They used enterprise-wide networks to tear down walls between functional departments and reengineered their companies to remain competitive. Today, the universal connectivity of the Internet makes it possible to tear down walls between companies to reinvent entire value chains. The result? We are now witnessing a grand globalization of white collar work, outsourcing, offshoring and other new forms of extreme competition. Industry and national boundaries have become a blur. All is changed, and no industry is exempt. Pioneering companies have already disrupted incumbents and come from nowhere to dominate their industries. Their secret sauce? Business process management (BPM). This book brings together some of the best minds to explore the role and value of BPM, and what it portends. In its pages you will find the essential discussions and insights, straight from the thought leaders. In Search of BPM Excellence is for those who want to sustain the success of their businesses in the midst of the current sea of change. Is your company ready for extreme competition? ___________________________________________________________
* Where do you go to gain insight into this thing called BPM?
* Why is business process management so important / how important is it?
* What should you be considering when making BPM Next Practice?
* How will you get there and make sure you get where you want to go?
* Who needs BPM, do I? These are questions of greatest importance to business people and the Business Process Management Group has tracked down the leading thought leaders, analysts, methodologists and consultants in the field of business process management to get the answers. BPM sits at the heart of the Business Evolution we have now begun to experience -- and that will continue to be a primary economic driver over the next several decades. This book, In Search of BPM Excellence, is for those who want to sustain consistent, ongoing success, profit, and growth of their businesses in the midst of the current sea of change. This is the book for those in search of excellence.
Customer Reviews:
BPM Twists and Turns - I enjoyed the ride - recommended!.......2005-10-22
I read this book as part of my BPM training and recommend it without exception. It provides a good grounding from the
well known names in Business Process Change. The technology in BPM can be confusing. Martyn Ould does a nice chapter to explain that.
Andrew Spanyi helps us work out how we motivate the senior executives. Terry Schurters insight into methods is the easiest I have read (see my other reviews).
Taken together the contributors (14 I think) make an easy to read book I completely endorse for anyone wishing to get a complete picture of Process Management.
Excellent choice to get a broad perspective on BPM.......2005-09-07
This book covers a broad range of areas in BPM - some that I don't think most people have really considered. But I think that is the point, to present the broad ramifications of BPM as food for thought. Assuming that was the intent, it did a very good job.
I think the review in infoconomy by Graeme Burton sums it up best "a surprisingly readable guide to the latest best practice in business process management."
That's exactly what I found it to be.
Better off reading Hammer or Smith.......2005-09-02
I hate dissing stuff, but this one really disappointed me. Average at best. The book says "By professional, for professionals." Some of the frameworks are useful no doubt, but the insight of a Hammer, or Smith, is not there.
[...]
Blah from BPMG.......2005-09-01
Don't buy this book. It's more of the same decades old reengineering ideas from people who should know better. Put together by the BPMG.org, a small group of advocates for such ideas who run a for-fee site, for-fee events, etc, the 5-star review above is most likely a plant. Look at the phrase FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ONE BOOK - knocked up by "marketing"? If you want to know what's really happening in BPM, you'd be better off using Google and/or arranging reference visits to customer sites where technology is delivering really substantive change on the ground.
A Must Read for Process Professionals.......2005-06-25
In Search of BPM Excellence brings together the leaders in BPM from around the globe FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ONE BOOK. In Search of BPM Excellence presents the critical thinking for such key subject areas as: BPM Best Practice, Next Practice, The Real Time Enterprise, Strategy, Framework, BPM Software, BPM in Practice, New extensions to the BPM definition, and more.
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