Quick question for BPMS Watch readers. In my BPMN training I used Camtasia Studio to produce the Flash videos from Powerpoint and screencams. Of course, now I want to change the slide masters, tweak a few slides, the usual thing. But the simplest change in the Powerpoint can mean a huge effort in Camtasia. Changing the slide master? Probably 20 hours to re-record the video and re-sync the audio to the slides.
My comment on Keith Swenson's XPDL-BPEL apples-and-oranges post and the failure of XPDL to fill the vacuum left by OMG in the BPMN specification stirred up an interesting response from Keith that reinvigorates the discussion and helps clear the air. But he still frames the discussion in terms of portability of executable designs rather than portability of models (i.e. abstracted from implementation details). In the XPDL vs BPEL discussion, this is appropriate, but in the discussion of BPMN portability it misses a fundamental point.
[This is a re-post of something I wrote yesterday on the SAP Business Process Expert megablog, in case you don't follow that site.]
At the recent Gartner BPM Summit, I was shocked to see how high a pedestal the Gartner analysts now place simulation analysis in their gallery of must-have BPM capabilities. Ever obedient, the BPMS and modeling tool vendors now universally throw it into the box. How else to get into that Magic Quadrant?
But have these analysts ever really used these tools, or even scrutinized them closely? I'm not really sure. I haven't looked at all of them myself, but my sampling to date tells me this is a fake feature if ever there was one.
Bruce Mayfield posts a comment on an old thread exploring different ways to model business exceptions in BPMN. Since that original post I've worked out some best practices for different types of exceptions (business exceptions vs system faults, exception detected interanlly to the process vs signaled by external event, etc). As a reminder that our BPMN training is now available from bpmessentials.com, it's worth reprinting his comment here and showing the solution.
I'm not going to try to compete with Sandy's wall-to-wall coverage of this event. Mine will be more impressionistic.
Simon Hayward keynote. Gartner likes to sell futures on technology. It's what they do. Simon has a chart of the value realization from BPM over time, with 3 curves. Today the "productivity" curve is highest. In 2012 (safely over the horizon) the "visibility" curve overtakes it. In 2017 (I'll be dead by then) the "innovation" curve reigns supreme. After that, I don't know, maybe global warming wipes out the earth. Does this kind of chart really advance the ball?
An interesting difference between the Gartner and Brainstorm BPM conference is that at Gartner the keynoters assume and universally assert that if you're not going through the whole model-design-deploy-execute-monitor-analyze-optimize thing you're not really doing BPM. At Brainstorm the keynoting class generally advances the notion that BPM ends with modeling and "process thinking"... although the vendors who sponsor the thing really wish they would stop saying that. I like the Gartner approach, but which one is addressing the "real" BPM marketplace?
Keith Swenson is one of the true superheroes of BPM, and a pioneer in the development of interoperability standards. Known for his stalwart defense of XPDL, he periodically feels called upon to insist that XPDL does not compete with BPEL... then usually adding that XPDL is actually better. But I've always felt that Keith obscures the real difference between XPDL and BPEL and their relationships to the "real" BPM standard, which is BPMN.
[My new column on BPMInstitute.org]
Lacking support for fundamental concepts like human tasks and subprocesses, BPEL has become a favorite whipping boy of BPM vendors and consultants. But for all its faults, BPEL enjoys something that BPMN advocates can only dream about: an XML storage and interchange format that makes sense. It?s often said that BPEL is an XML language not a graphical notation, but the reality is that graphical BPEL design tools all use more or less the same notation, based on a simple mapping to native BPEL language constructs: Receive, Reply, Invoke, etc. BPMN has a standard notation, but still lacks a standard storage and interchange format consistent with the fundamental goals of BPMN itself.
I?ve been thinking about this recently with the announcement from OMG that the ?official? XML format for BPMN, based on OMG?s new Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM), is in its final stages of ratification. Besides BPDM, Intalio has developed an alternative XML format for BPMN and has contributed it to the Eclipse Foundation. And let?s not forget XPDL 2.0, the Workflow Management Coalition?s reworking of its old process interchange warhorse to encompass various pieces of the BPMN spec. But to me, none of these proposals is as satisfying as BPEL?s approach, which makes the XML format closely match the terminology and semantics of the process constructs, their target audience, and business purpose.
I'm in the process of updating my 2006 BPMS Report series on BPMInstitute.org to the new and improved 2007 version. A major change from last year is a beefed-up evaluation scoring. I've discovered that many users (and most vendors) are happy to skip the 25-page walkthrough of the product and go straight to the scorecard at the end. Which product "won"? I haven't figured out the presentation - it will probably be some 2-dimensional thing like the Forrester Wave or Gartner MQ - but I'm close to having a finished scoring methodology. It's probably asking for trouble, but I'm publishing it right here so that you can comment upon it.
Maybe I bit off a bit more than I could chew. I launched my BPMN training this spring and simultaneously the update of my BPMS Reports on BPMInstitute.org. Plus actual paying work. It was stuffing 10 pounds into a five-pound bag, and the BPMS Watch blog was what fell on the floor. But now version 2.1 of the BPMN training is about to go live, and the first 7 of 12 or 13 BPMS Reports are done, and I can at least come up for air.
BEA recently completed a "thorough analysis" of the BPM market, based on analyst reports, articles, and customer surveys. Some highlights, with my thoughts: BPM is one of the fastest-growing software markets, projected to go from $500 Million in 2006 to $6 Billion in 2011. When I see $6 Billion I have to wonder what they're counting, but yeah, it's definitely moving. Rapidly consolidating, from 150 vendors in 2006 to 25 in 2007.